Things that are overrated (no sports/politics)

[hoyainspirit]

Work, unless you don't have any.

[hoyatables]

You know what is overrated? The 24 hour/all news all the time connectivity that we have. No chance for downtime, no way to disconnect, and creation of a huge vacuum/void desperate for something to fill it that leads to weeks of coverage of crazy people crashing parties and crazy people having affairs, fueled in large part by the very desire of those people to enter into it.

Wouldn't mind the 24-hr coverage if it was of things that mattered. And blogging has its merits, particularly in providing close to real time coverage of some of the small local things that you'd otherwise never read. But the major news outlets are just a joke.

[theexorcist]

Dec 8, 2009 9:33:41 GMT -5 hoyatables said:

You know what is overrated? The 24 hour/all news all the time connectivity that we have. No chance for downtime, no way to disconnect, and creation of a huge vacuum/void desperate for something to fill it that leads to weeks of coverage of crazy people crashing parties and crazy people having affairs, fueled in large part by the very desire of those people to enter into it.

Wouldn't mind the 24-hr coverage if it was of things that mattered. And blogging has its merits, particularly in providing close to real time coverage of some of the small local things that you'd otherwise never read. But the major news outlets are just a joke.

I say that it's underrated. I can be in almost any corner of the globe and check Wikipedia and get basic information on anything. I can go to Congress' website and get the actual text of bills if I live in the middle of North Dakota. I can see actual video from protestors in Tehran or from campaign stops in Alabama.

Yes, the most popular videos on YouTube are Avril Lavigne and Lady Gaga and that stupid kitten who smiles every time that the lady pokes its belly. And, yes, civilization functioned fine when we didn't have ubiquitous connectivity. But we're not even scratching the surface of what this can do.

[Filo]

Dec 8, 2009 9:50:11 GMT -5 theexorcist said:

Dec 8, 2009 9:33:41 GMT -5 hoyatables said:

You know what is overrated? The 24 hour/all news all the time connectivity that we have. No chance for downtime, no way to disconnect, and creation of a huge vacuum/void desperate for something to fill it that leads to weeks of coverage of crazy people crashing parties and crazy people having affairs, fueled in large part by the very desire of those people to enter into it.

Wouldn't mind the 24-hr coverage if it was of things that mattered. And blogging has its merits, particularly in providing close to real time coverage of some of the small local things that you'd otherwise never read. But the major news outlets are just a joke.

I say that it's underrated. I can be in almost any corner of the globe and check Wikipedia and get basic information on anything. I can go to Congress' website and get the actual text of bills if I live in the middle of North Dakota. I can see actual video from protestors in Tehran or from campaign stops in Alabama.
.

But you can't manage to have a little fun in Memphis? ;D

[Cambridge]

I'm sorry, I don't understand some people's lists. How can something be underrated if everyone genuinely loves it? Same thing with overrated, it can't be overrated if everyone genuinely despises it.

[theexorcist]

Dec 8, 2009 10:35:26 GMT -5 Cambridge said:

I'm sorry, I don't understand some people's lists. How can something be underrated if everyone genuinely loves it? Same thing with overrated, it can't be overrated if everyone genuinely despises it.

I'll use movies.

Ask someone to make a list of their favorite movies, and Raiders usually gets skipped over. Yet mention it to almost everyone and they'll say "yes! I love that movie!" and they probably like it more than other movies on their "favorite" list. It's underrated - you never think about it, but it's great (also on this list is The Hurt Locker, which you should all buy or rent when it comes out on DVD and Blu-Ray in January). You can also have movies that are famous for being bad that are enjoyable - they're underrated, but they're underrated because the bar's so low (I found Waterworld to be enjoyable rather than a bomb, so it's underrated - but I still won't get it on DVD).

Similarly, take Twilight. Very popular, and lots of coverage for a movie that is, to put it simply, banal. It's overrated - it doesn't deserve the coverage it gets.

You can also have a good movie that gets lots of press and becomes more popular than it has a right to be. Let's go with Little Miss Sunshine, which was good, but probably not the lock for the Oscar that critics thought it should be. You can also go with Star Wars, which, when the Washington Post did a poll on the best movie ever made about a decade ago, won by a landslide - it's great, but it's not the best movie of all time.

You can also have movies that are properly rated - The Godfather gets a lot of press because it's amazing, Up was a great movie this year that probably won't win Best Picture, Battlefield Earth was a box office bomb because it was really awful.

[SFHoya99]

Movie Director Division:

Overrated:

Polanski
Scorsese
Coppola

Underrated:

Billy Wilder
Kurosawa
Kubrick
Hitchcock
Sidney Lumet

Depends on who you are talking to:

Spielberg (He's better than you think...)

[Cambridge]

Dec 8, 2009 11:29:35 GMT -5 theexorcist said:

Dec 8, 2009 10:35:26 GMT -5 Cambridge said:

I'm sorry, I don't understand some people's lists. How can something be underrated if everyone genuinely loves it? Same thing with overrated, it can't be overrated if everyone genuinely despises it.

I'll use movies.

Ask someone to make a list of their favorite movies, and Raiders usually gets skipped over. Yet mention it to almost everyone and they'll say "yes! I love that movie!" and they probably like it more than other movies on their "favorite" list. It's underrated - you never think about it, but it's great (also on this list is The Hurt Locker, which you should all buy or rent when it comes out on DVD and Blu-Ray in January). You can also have movies that are famous for being bad that are enjoyable - they're underrated, but they're underrated because the bar's so low (I found Waterworld to be enjoyable rather than a bomb, so it's underrated - but I still won't get it on DVD).

Similarly, take Twilight. Very popular, and lots of coverage for a movie that is, to put it simply, banal. It's overrated - it doesn't deserve the coverage it gets.

You can also have a good movie that gets lots of press and becomes more popular than it has a right to be. Let's go with Little Miss Sunshine, which was good, but probably not the lock for the Oscar that critics thought it should be. You can also go with Star Wars, which, when the Washington Post did a poll on the best movie ever made about a decade ago, won by a landslide - it's great, but it's not the best movie of all time.

You can also have movies that are properly rated - The Godfather gets a lot of press because it's amazing, Up was a great movie this year that probably won't win Best Picture, Battlefield Earth was a box office bomb because it was really awful.

You mistake popularity for rating. Also, you confuse general popularity with what would likely be popular within the subset of the population that constitutes Hoyatalk. My point was that composing a list of "overrated" things that is comprised of things most posters on Hoyatalk would generally find awful - i.e. Twilight - may be a true reflection of what is overrated by the general public, but is not going to inspire much debate here on Hoyatalk - and thus is not overrated here. If anything, I'd argue that Twilight is probably underrated here on Hoyatalk.

Also, I find you incredibly underrated as a poster.

[atlasfrysmith]

3-star hotels. There's a big step up from a 1-star Motel 6 to a 2-star Holiday Inn/Best Western, and if you're at the Ritz or the Four Seasons it's clearly a top-shelf, 4-star experience. But I have yet to stay at a Doubletree or some other 3-star place and really feel that it's a cut above the 2-star.

Chipotle--the flavor itself, not the restaurant. To be fair, I do enjoy the chipotle Tabasco on occasion, but it seems every frickin food has to be chipotle-flavored these days.

Black Friday 3AM sales. I got a great deal on a giant TV on Black Friday. But I bought it online, picked it up in store 3 days later, and didn't have to fight deranged marauders at Wal-Mart before the sun came up.

Macroeconomic forecasting. Trust me on this one; I speak from experience. It's astrology.

Any product that claims to get dog pee out of carpet. Results of my own controlled experiments with a disturbingly large sample size (BAD DOG!) show no significant difference between special cleaners and general soaps/solvents. Except Oxyclean, which bleached white spots into our off-white carpet.

Crayon boxes with a built-in sharpener. The thing doesn't work, and it just eats your crayons faster. And why the hell can't they sell a box of 64 crayons but with something like 4 red ones, 3 blue, etc at the expense of "radioactive nectarine" or whatever they've got now, so at the end of the year you aren't reduced to drawing pictures with 18 shades of brown and orange but no goddam blue? Still upset about this after many years.

Fake Christmas trees. They look awful. Admit it. And I do not believe they are any easier to deal with--we put up a beautiful real tree in about 3 minutes yesterday and will take it down in 3 minutes later on. I'll manage to scrape together 30 seconds a day to water it.

RISK. Dull, simplistic strategy, and it takes too long after the outcome is clear to actually finish.

Flip-flops. Bad for your feet and knees, hard to run in, not particularly stylish, etc.

Antibacterial wipes. You don't need to disinfect everything you see. We have immune systems, you know. I'll be blaming you as my flesh rots from an uncontrollable staph infection that's immune to everything we throw at it.

[HoyaSinceBirth]

1) Risk is awesome!
2) Antibacterial wipes i agree to an extent( unnecessary), but they don't contribute to resistant strains of bacteria. They're not actual antibacterials they're just detergents that kill everything.

[atlasfrysmith]

Ok fair point on the wipes. But I think it still contributes to not developing natural immune responses. I'm no expert though.

[jgalt]

Rangila, I got the point after the first dance, i didnt need another hour and a half of it

[Bando]

Wine - I mean, it's nice and all, but I think it's just another way to be snobby more than anything else.

Automobiles - giant pains in the ass, if you ask me.

California - it's not the best place ever.

Macs - don't want to start a flame war, but again, not the saving grace of humanity.

Natalie Portman - she was nude in one movie. She was surprisingly unattractive.

Smoking bans in dive bars - they've replaced the smell of smoke with the smell of urine. Not a good trade.

Fax Machines - why are they still around, anyway?

30 Rock - it's a good show. It's not the best comedy ever made, relax already.

Serial dramas - can be awesome, e.g. The Wire. But also can be crappy, e.g. FlashForward.

AFS & HSB: Have you ever played Diplomacy? All strategy, no chance, and backstabbing a plenty.

[rosslynhoya]

Overrated, and not particularly good:

Lamb
The Economist
Champagne
The International Spy Museum

[HoyaSinceBirth]

I have yet to play diplomacy. I hear it's great. But some how phillyhoya never ends up breaking it out.

[mchoya]

Risk is awesome. For an overrated board game, try Monopoly. Game takes way too long and most games end before anyone wins just because you want the game to be over. Then, Hasbro gimmicks new sets by adding in a speed die, changing purple to brown, and getting rid of 10% on income tax. I bought a Monopoly game recently and I had no idea what was going on.

[CAHoya07]

Threads about things being overrated. ;D

[atlasfrysmith]

Dec 8, 2009 16:17:30 GMT -5 mchoya said:

Risk is awesome. For an overrated board game, try Monopoly. Game takes way too long and most games end before anyone wins just because you want the game to be over.

If you play Monopoly with an economist, an MBA student, and a lawyer, you'd be surprised how interesting the game gets. Ever consider trading Boardwalk for a 50% share of all rental income and a promise to improve the property while maintaining a possibility of reverter because you only conveyed a fee simple determinable for so long as the grantee is not bankrupt?

[Coast2CoastHoya]

Dec 8, 2009 16:42:24 GMT -5 atlasfrysmith said:

Dec 8, 2009 16:17:30 GMT -5 mchoya said:

Risk is awesome. For an overrated board game, try Monopoly. Game takes way too long and most games end before anyone wins just because you want the game to be over.

If you play Monopoly with an economist, an MBA student, and a lawyer, you'd be surprised how interesting the game gets. Ever consider trading Boardwalk for a 50% share of all rental income and a promise to improve the property while maintaining a possibility of reverter because you only conveyed a fee simple determinable for so long as the grantee is not bankrupt?

And people wonder why the housing market collapsed ...

[Boz]

Dec 8, 2009 9:50:11 GMT -5 theexorcist said:

Dec 8, 2009 9:33:41 GMT -5 hoyatables said:

You know what is overrated? The 24 hour/all news all the time connectivity that we have. No chance for downtime, no way to disconnect, and creation of a huge vacuum/void desperate for something to fill it that leads to weeks of coverage of crazy people crashing parties and crazy people having affairs, fueled in large part by the very desire of those people to enter into it.

Wouldn't mind the 24-hr coverage if it was of things that mattered. And blogging has its merits, particularly in providing close to real time coverage of some of the small local things that you'd otherwise never read. But the major news outlets are just a joke.

I say that it's underrated. I can be in almost any corner of the globe and check Wikipedia and get basic information on anything. I can go to Congress' website and get the actual text of bills if I live in the middle of North Dakota. I can see actual video from protestors in Tehran or from campaign stops in Alabama.

Yes, the most popular videos on YouTube are Avril Lavigne and Lady Gaga and that stupid kitten who smiles every time that the lady pokes its belly. And, yes, civilization functioned fine when we didn't have ubiquitous connectivity. But we're not even scratching the surface of what this can do.

I thought this was an appropriate place to post this chart:

lifehacker.com/5422504/americans-consume-34gb-of-content-a-day

Here is the actual report:

hmi.ucsd.edu/pdf/HMI_2009_ConsumerReport_Dec9_2009.pdf