I think this is a reaction to the tone set by the headline, which seems to ask "why don't people use this far more cumbersome alternative?"

That said, the assessment of pros and cons in the article is less stereotypically oblivious and more nuanced than the above would suggest.

Hacker News is not a place for "reactions" - it's a place to have thoughtful discussions about interesting and weird things (and startups). Toplevel comment added negative value to Hacker News (as I now have to put up with it being the top comment thread in what was otherwise a mildly interesting comment section) and was an emotional knee-jerk reaction that broke this section of the guidelines:

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

It would be nice if we could keep this kind of low-effort, Facebook-esque fluff out of Hacker News.

It seems that just having a headline that asks a question is not good enough any more, at least on HN, as most "readers" appear to assume the headline is a tacit endorsement of the subject of the question.

The headline is meant to be a joke or /s and of course "the internet" reads everything as literal, this happens more broadly than HN

The tl;dr right at the beginning of the article states that these mics don't make a lot of sense.

People only read the headline and get triggered, not even the tl;dr can reach these humans anymore.

I can guarantee you wouldn't be making that comment if the post title was "Why don't more people code in machine language"?

But because it's a diy project, it somehow makes it laudable, even though it's a terrible idea and a waste of time and money when there are much better alternatives.

To be clear, I think "wasting time" in useless projects is not really a waste of time. But the title of the post implies that more people should waste resources in something awful.

In hindsight, i didn't write into that comment as much merriment and cheer as I originally intended. This article contains many staples about this community which i find incredibly endearing, including focusing on a strange problem and trying to solve it with the most roundabout method.

I would disagree with you though on the 'DIY' nature of the article, it is certainly a creative solution but the author hasn't necessarily built anything.

You don't post on HN for just a pat on the back. Nothing wrong with people responding with respectful criticism even if they are wrong so long as they put some thought into it. People can feel a certain way and keep it to themselves or they can express their opinion and someone else can correct them or if they are correct others are corrected by them.

This isn’t a Lego ad, no brownie points for just building random things. I mean build them if you want but don’t judge others because they don’t want to?

>no brownie points for just building random things

That's kind of what hackers do though isn't it?

Hackers hack things up. That’s not always about building, unless you have an extremely loose definition of building. Anyways even hackers need critics.

I'd disagree a bit. There's merit in building something as a way to learn. Kind of a core tenant of hacking. Take it apart, put it back together etc. Going farther with your curiosity than typical.

This idea might be useful for skiing. I do course control for kids ski races and you want to hold the skier in the gate when another crashes further down the course. Radio coms have to be very tight and clear. Wind and dealing with the elements and trying to push the mic button with gloves on is a pita. Maybe there's ideas here that could help. Makes me think at the very least.