
Ask HN: Your Favourite HN Comment? - higerordermap
Every once in a while there are some good, __in-depth__ replies to posts on HN, worth bookmarking. What are your favourite HN comments?
======
aleem
On what should you be:

> This guy has gone to the zoo and interviewed all the animals. The tiger says
> that the secret to success is to live alone, be well disguised, have sharp
> claws and know how to stalk. The snail says that the secret is to live
> inside a solid shell, stay small, hide under dead trees and move slowly
> around at night. The parrot says that success lies in eating fruit, being
> alert, packing light, moving fast by air when necessary, and always sticking
> by your friends. His conclusion: These animals are giving contradictory
> advice! And that's because they're all "outliers".

> But both of these points are subtly misleading. Yes, the advice is
> contradictory, but that's only a problem if you imagine that the animal
> kingdom is like a giant arena in which all the world's animals battle for
> the Animal Best Practices championship [1], after which all the losing
> animals will go extinct and the entire world will adopt the winning ways of
> the One True Best Animal. But, in fact, there are a hell of a lot of
> different ways to be a successful animal, and they coexist nicely. Indeed,
> they form an ecosystem in which all animals require other, much different
> animals to exist.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=469831#up_469940](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=469831#up_469940)

~~~
cercatrova
I will have to agree with the dead comment by @leafboi, it is not that every
animal can live harmoniously, indeed every animal _is_ in competition by the
laws of natural selection, and each animal can be seen as the outlier in its
species. In the case of humans, there may be multiple paths to success, but it
may be that many of them lead to failure while producing certain outliers.

Unrelatedly, does anyone know why certain comments immediately become dead,
they don't really seem to break any HN rules but I see often that some
comments die quickly.

~~~
wombatmobile
As human beings, moderators have their own preferences which exist beyond the
HN guidelines, and are not meta moderated, except in the aggregate.

When a comment becomes dead, it's because some mods chose to vote it down, and
fewer mods choose to revive it. The net effect is an expression of the
prevailing culture.

Your question about why this sometimes happens "immediately" is an interesting
part of the dynamic.

~~~
cercatrova
Seems like the sibling comment also by leafboi shows that HN automatically
makes dead, accounts with negative karma.

~~~
surround
leafboi’s account was shadow banned, meaning that any new comments are
automatically, immediately marked as [dead].

------
saboot
A commenter talked about his experience with testicular cancer and encouraged
other 20-34 year old men to check themselves.

So I did, found a lump, and because I found it early it was removed with no
further issue. So that's definitely one of my favorite comments!

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7120102](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7120102)

~~~
slazaro
Are there any other checks that one could easily do that could help with
detecting these kind of random diseases early?

~~~
atmosx
I don’t think so. Early in this context means “less than 1cm”. Males need to
check themselves every 6 months to one year. The standard check is a triplex
still the urologist. Additionally, I would add that it’s a good practice to
use a bank sperm while young. You never know what is going to happen in the
future.

------
jakelazaroff
I think about this often when I’m programming:

 _> Dependencies (coupling) is an important concern to address, but it's only
1 of 4 criteria that I consider and it's not the most important one. I try to
optimize my code around reducing state, coupling, complexity and code, in that
order. I'm willing to add increased coupling if it makes my code more
stateless. I'm willing to make it more complex if it reduces coupling. And I'm
willing to duplicate code if it makes the code less complex. Only if it
doesn't increase state, coupling or complexity do I dedup code._

 _> The reason I put stateless code as the highest priority is it's the
easiest to reason about. Stateless logic functions the same whether run
normally, in parallel or distributed. It's the easiest to test, since it
requires very little setup code. And it's the easiest to scale up, since you
just run another copy of it. Once you introduce state, your life gets
significantly harder._

 _> I think the reason that novice programmers optimize around code reduction
is that it's the easiest of the 4 to spot. The other 3 are much more subtle
and subjective and so will require greater experience to spot. But learning
those priorities, in that order, has made me a significantly better
developer._

[https://news.ycombinator.com/favorites?id=jakelazaroff&comme...](https://news.ycombinator.com/favorites?id=jakelazaroff&comments=t)

------
dgellow
"The contrarian dynamic" by dang, from around a month ago.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24215601](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24215601)

> The "contrarian dynamic" is that HN threads (and internet comments
> generally) are largely propelled by people making objections. Cunningham's
> Law touches on this [1]. The objections come in waves. In the earliest stage
> of a thread, they tend to be rapid negative reactions to the article. It's
> not that these are a community consensus, it's that they're the fastest
> reactions to feel, and the fastest comments to write—especially when the
> topic is provocative, when most of us are reacting from cache [2].

> Then a second wave of objections is generated by the first wave. Readers
> come to the thread, see the comment section dominated by those initial
> 'triggered' responses, and feel some version of surprised-shocked-dismayed
> at how the commenters all seem to be reacting in that way. This propels them
> to write defenses of the article, often carefully expressing more moderate
> or balanced views than the first wave—but they probably wouldn't have been
> motivated to post anything if there hadn't been the first wave of comments
> to object to!

> These second-wave comments tend to get more upvotes, perhaps because more
> people tend to share the more moderate view, but also because those comments
> tend to be more reflective [2] and therefore better written.

> This explains why the top comment in a thread so often begins (ironically)
> with "Wow, I can't believe the comments here"—or from the current thread:
> "All of these comments make me think HN has never interacted with a 5 year
> old" [3]—followed by a defense of whatever those objections were objecting
> to. Eventually you get objections to the objections to the objections—which
> reminds me of the line "My complication had a little complication" from
> Brazil [4], and also epicycles.

~~~
loceng
I'm not sure if I'm surprised that dang didn't touch on to mention downvotes
as an even more rapid "contrarian dynamic" mechanism; wouldn't it be nice if
downvotes had a little more friction, effort required for the action - like
qualitative text from the downvoter as to why a comment is being downvoted to
then allow OP the opportunity to clarify or expand on their comment - "to be
more reflective and therefore better written"? The downvote-comment doesn't
have to be identified as being a downvote-comment, showing up as a regular
reply.

That added cost/friction may also act as a filter for lazy readers/skimmers or
those misinterpreting what's said at first glance, and therefore if forced to
include some critical text response along with their downvote then OP and
other readers can begin to get to the bottom/foundation of the distaste,
giving OP at least some guidance as to why someone/people are downvoting -
arguably a valuable learning/crowdsourcing moderation tool/mechanism.

I feel the added cost of time and mental effort for downvotes would add a
great balance.

~~~
pvg
This has been discussed many times and it's not a good idea - it adds friction
to the _discussion_ , more than anything else. The threads would be full of
pointless meta.

The fundamental problem is that getting downvoted feels kinda bad - nobody
ever asks for explanatory notes on upvotes. It's reasonable to wonder whether
getting downvoted feels, say, too bad too soon and if there are UI ways to
address that. But it's worth remembering that for downvoting to actually work,
it has to feel at least somewhat bad. It's going to feel somewhat bad with or
without notes from others about why they thought you ought to feel a little
bit bad.

------
combatentropy
One of my favorites is a super-long one by a user named bane, about three
solutions to speeding up computing: (1) "high" (more RAM, CPU), (2) "wide"
(more machines), and (3) "deep" (refactoring), which is what he recommends
first. More than once he has rewritten something that was running slowly even
on the latest and greatest architectures (perhaps partially because of that),
to running on a single machine, even an old personal computer. He reminds us
that a modern computer, with its solid-state drives, gigabytes of memory, and
multicore gigahertz processors, can take on many large problems, if you just
stoop to give the problem a decent amount of attention first,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8902739](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8902739)

~~~
tootie
We've used the terms horizontal and vertical scaling to mean those same things
for a while.

~~~
combatentropy
He does not claim to introduce the concepts of horizontal and vertical
scaling. He mentions them only to immediately discourage them: "Lots of people
make the mistake of thinking there's only two vectors you can go to improve
performance, high or wide. [...] There's a third direction you can go, I call
it 'going deep'." Like I said, it's a long post, so I tried my best to
summarize it and then linked to it.

------
ivars
User mikekchar on the value of ideas:

 _My advice is to lower the value of ideas. A lot of time people think, "If
only I had a good idea I would be successful". You will see other people
saying things like, "Buy my good idea!". But really, good ideas are a dime a
dozen. Good ideas, bad ideas... it actually doesn't make much difference. What
makes the difference is execution and timing.

For things that take a long time, timing is essentially random. The world is
chaotic. Had I known everyone and their dog would be locked down in their
houses for months on end, I would have built something to cater to them. But
of course, there is no way to know. I find it amusing that just before the
pandemic there was a thread on HN talking about overvalued unicorns and Zoom
was up near the top of the list. What would need to happen to make Zoom a
household name, people asked?

To be successful, really what you need is execution and to have the patience
to wait until what you are doing is relevant. Of course there is the fear that
it will never be relevant. However, if you accept the thesis that the good
idea is not valuable in itself, then you realise that it is not really
valuable to pivot without a really good reason. A good idea that is never
relevant is just as worthless as a bad idea that is never relevant. However,
even a bad idea that is executed very well and ready when the opportunity
arises can be successful._

~~~
p1mrx
It can be fun to think of "new" ideas, and then search the Internet for them.

This week, I wanted a handheld device to push buttons and open doors without
touching them; found several for sale (though the models without covers seem
useless.)

Later I wanted a 3D support structure to fit under a mask and increase its
usable surface area; found several for sale.

~~~
jeffreyrogers
I think I'm fairly creative, but I've only had one or two ideas that weren't
reinventions of something someone else had already done. Doesn't matter what
it is: software, electrical circuit, some clever mechanical thing, it's almost
always already been done. Even if you look at patent grants, almost none of
them are truly novel.

~~~
selestify
So what did you do with those ideas?

~~~
jeffreyrogers
One of them costs too much for me to pursue. The other I'm working on as a
hobby, but don't expect it to bear any fruit for a couple of years.

My main takeaway though is that an idea doesn't have to be novel for it to be
a good idea. Lots of things that were tried and failed could succeed with a
new approach. And lots of things that're currently successfully could be
redone in a better way.

------
chaorace
This one struck me for its tongue-in-cheek levity, credit to haroldgibbons:

 _My "aha" moment was realizing most of my ideas and most apps out there are
complete garbage. Not needed. Damaging, even. 99.9% of all of it._

 _For example, most "cutting edge" web apps are better off as PHP monoliths.
Facebook was a PHP file for a long time. But most apps in general should never
make it past being shell scripts, which are better off staying as spreadsheets
or better - text files which are better off as pieces of paper whenever
possible. And all paper is better off left as thoughts whenever possible, and
most thoughts should be forsaken._

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24397272](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24397272)

------
howon92
For me, it's this comment
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224))
that argued Dropbox wasn't useful and was going to fail. Both the comment and
its replies (by Drew at the time when Dropbox wasn't known) really get to me
because they remind me to keep an open mind to other people's ideas and have
conviction in my own ideas even if there are people who doubt them.

~~~
IAmGraydon
One of the things I look for when getting into a new venture, investment, etc
is that most people don’t understand how it would succeed. If I have a deep,
realistic understanding of how it will work, that’s all I need. Big gains come
when you have vision that no one else does, but you know they will all see
your reality as the truth with time.

~~~
aflag
Another way to think about it is that no product is ubiquitously liked by the
entire population. One important part of developing a new product is figuring
out who your target audience is. Their feedback is likely relevant to you, but
the feedback from someone who'd never use it anyway can probably be taken with
a grain of salt. It's very common for people to think that, for something to
be successful, everyone must appreciate it. However, that's not true. For
instance, there are lots of things I don't see the point of (like tiktok or
instagram); yet, they're very successful products. I'm just not the target
audience.

That said, I don't even think his main point was really invalid. Dropbox
didn't really replace pendrives, people are still carying those around. As
pointed out, connectivity is still an issue and people want to have an offline
backup.

------
AlchemistCamp
It's very short and not at all in-depth, but this was my favorite comment. It
was one of the greatest troll shutdowns I've ever seen:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35083](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35083)

~~~
anderspitman
I recommend following the thread back up. Very interesting. Anyone know if
cperciva ever made it big?

~~~
narwally
Tarsnap was his startup in question. It looks like it's still going strong.
Even has a testimonial from the CEO of Stripe on the website.

------
szhu
This reply to a comment about how taking an action on moral grounds might be
bad for business:

 _> Yes, doing the right thing often is dangerous and earns you hatred from
other people doing bad things who love the freedom of hiding amongst a herd of
other equally guilty people._

 _> The reason we have so much respect for people who take stand and do what
they believe is right is because doing so is so hard. That doesn't mean you
shouldn't do it._

I'll probably remember this quote for years to come.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23534277](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23534277)

------
superasn
My favourite HN comment was about burnout:

 _Burnout is caused when you repeatedly make large amounts of sacrifice and or
effort into high-risk problems that fail. It 's the result of a negative
prediction error in the nucleus accumbens. You effectively condition your
brain to associate work with failure.

Subconsciously, then eventually, consciously, you wonder if it's worth it. The
best way to prevent burnout is to follow up a serious failure with doing small
things that you know are going to work. As a biologist, I frequently put in
50-70 and sometimes 100 hour workweeks. The very nature of experimental
science (lots of unkowns) means that failure happens. The nature of the
culture means that grad students are "groomed" by sticking them on low-
probability of success, high reward fishing expeditions (gotta get those
nature, science papers) I used to burn out for months after accumulating many
many hours of work on high-risk projects. I saw other grad students get it
really bad, and burn out for years.

During my first postdoc, I dated a neuroscientist and reprogrammed my work
habits. On the heels of the failure of a project where I have spent weeks
building up for, I will quickly force myself to do routine molecular biology,
or general lab tasks, or a repeat of an experiment that I have gotten to work
in the past. These all have an immediate reward. Now I don't burn out anymore,
and find it easier to re-attempt very difficult things, with a clearer
mindset.

For coders, I would posit that most burnout comes on the heels of failure that
is not in the hands of the coder (management decisions, market realities,
etc). My suggested remedy would be to reassociate work with success by doing
routine things such as debugging or code testing that will restore the act of
working with the little "pops" of endorphins.

That is not to say that having a healthy life schedule makes burnout less
likely (I think it does; and one should have a healthy lifestyle for its own
sake) but I don't think it addresses the main issue._

link to comment:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5630618](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5630618)

~~~
not_the_nsa
Thanks for sharing this. Right now I'm burnt out beyond words, having
delivered a phase of a huge project, followed by upper management actions that
make me feel extremely devalued and dehumanized. I've already written a list
of personal development tasks for the three weeks' leave ahead - I need to up-
skill, then find a new employer - which I'll restructure into little wins.

~~~
throw_this_one
You should prob just completely take a break during the 3 weeks. Go hiking,
biking, etc and let your brain rewire so that you're not in a flight or fight
mode. Something like "just walking hard for 5 hours gets me to the top of the
mountain" and then you'll be so fresh after 3 weeks of that. Work won't seem
as stressful or important in life.

~~~
narwally
It's amazing what a bit of exercise and a head clear of problems to solve can
do for you. In my experience, it's unfortunately the case(for me at least)
that the harder and longer you push before you burnout scales linearly with
the length of the break you'll need to take in order to recover.

I learned this lesson the hard way and ended having to take a multiple year
hiatus from even looking at a text editor. I wouldn't be surprised if it was
in a way a form of PTSD; for a long while, even thinking about programming
elevated my heart rate. I ended up working as a bike mechanic during that time
away, and the combination of a low stakes environment and working with my
hands did my mental health a lot of good.

~~~
throw_this_one
Damn crazy. Why did that happen? Moderate burnout situation that went on for
way too long? Or intense burnout in a few months?

Yeah I mean going off of the great burnout comment before, it's that the
negative mental pathways are being carved super deep every day by your
continued effort -> failure (or perceived failure by you or manager).

I wonder if mushrooms/acid/mdma can help cure professional burnout faster?

How's being a bike mechanic money-wise? If you have a solid amount of capital
built up from grinding as a soft engr, that could be a nice segway for a time.

~~~
narwally
> Damn crazy. Why did that happen? Moderate burnout situation that went on for
> way too long? Or intense burnout in a few months?

Basically a combination of both. I was at a medium sized startup fresh out of
college, and I was the only one working on a completely new project using a
language nobody else at the company used (I was doing NLP stuff in python).
There was no code review and next to no mentorship, and every other developer
was working in Java/Scala, so they had almost no clue what exactly I was
working on. Early on I was actually able to deliver on pretty much everything
asked of me, and had one of the models I had trained being used in production
within six months. It was this terrible combination of me feeling completely
out of my depth, yet everyone else only sees that I'm delivering, so thinks I
have everything under control.

I knew very little python or machine learning when I started, but was able to
get fairly competent in the problem domain quickly. But as things progressed,
my severe lack of experience in developing a large project started to slow
progress down and take a toll on me. I felt like I had to keep up the pace I
had set expectations with early on, so I just started working longer and
longer hours trying to meet deadlines that probably didn't matter anyways.
Near the end I was secretly working nights and weekends because I had this
mentality that If I didn't someone was eventually going to find out that I had
no clue what I was doing. Pretty classic imposter syndrome fueled by
perfectionism.

> How's being a bike mechanic money-wise?

Haha, not good. At a shop that pays well, it's around $20/hour after base pay
plus commission. It was a nice change of pace though. It made me enough where
I didn't have to use too much of my savings. I quit soon after Covid started
and have been doing some portfolio projects and brushing up on my interview
skills.

------
McKayDavis
@dang recently (17 days ago) posted a list of the most favorited HN comments
in this comment:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24360449](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24360449)

~~~
raverbashing
Interesting. I'm surprised the counts for the most popular comments are so
low, given the number of users on HN

~~~
abdusco
Favorite feature isn't really easy to discover. You have to click a comment's
timestamp to go to its page, then click favorite.

------
dlkmp
Oracle code base and test cycle description:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18442941](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18442941)

I've referred to this comment a couple of times in discussions with people
I've worked with. It is a great example for many problems of old code bases.

~~~
rjkennedy98
I was going to share this myself. It's really great knowing that it stuck a
chord with others.

So much to takeaway from that post. For me it is 1\. Its important how you
structure your code (flags and global state can wreak havoc on a program) 2\.
No matter how bad your code base is - it can at least be functional if you
have good testing

------
ffpip
Some comments that I will always remember -

On Catering to the privacy crowd-
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24123463](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24123463)

Users of peanut butter shouldn't have to think about whether it contains glass
and razors -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20634128](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20634128)

On Telegram seven years ago -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6949814](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6949814)

Indian Govt blocks a PHP project for terrorism and anti national content -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8820378](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8820378)

On Show HN:Dropbox -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224)

Did you win the putnam? -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079)

------
onekorg
John Nagle commenting on Nagle's algorithm:

 _To avoid network congestion, the TCP stack implements a mechanism that waits
for the data up to 0.2 seconds so it won’t send a packet that would be too
small. This mechanism is ensured by Nagle’s algorithm, and 200ms is the value
of the UNIX implementation._

 _> Sigh. If you're doing bulk file transfers, you never hit that problem. If
you're sending enough data to fill up outgoing buffers, there's no delay. If
you send all the data and close the TCP connection, there's no delay after the
last packet. If you do send, reply, send, reply, there's no delay. If you do
bulk sends, there's no delay. If you do send, send, reply, there's a delay._

 _> The real problem is ACK delays. The 200ms "ACK delay" timer is a bad idea
that someone at Berkeley stuck into BSD around 1985 because they didn't really
understand the problem. A delayed ACK is a bet that there will be a reply from
the application level within 200ms. TCP continues to use delayed ACKs even if
it's losing that bet every time._

 _> If I'd still been working on networking at the time, that never would have
happened. But I was off doing stuff for a startup called Autodesk._

 _> John Nagle_

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9048947](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9048947)

------
shakethemonkey
My smart-ass comment[1] got us new Unicode characters[2].

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11959139](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11959139)

[2] [http://www.righto.com/2016/10/inspired-by-hn-comment-four-
ha...](http://www.righto.com/2016/10/inspired-by-hn-comment-four-half-
star.html)

~~~
dshacker
Love it

------
ananthrk
The legendary "Putnam" one, of course:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079)

~~~
jl2718
Okay, so, what do we think about TarSnap? Dude was obviously a genius, and
spent his time on backups instead of solving millennium problems. I say that
with the greatest respect. Is this entrepreneurship thing a trap?

~~~
cperciva
I decided to make my reply a blog post:
[http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2020-09-20-On-the-use-of-
a-l...](http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2020-09-20-On-the-use-of-a-life.html)

~~~
jl2718
Wow. Amazing. Thank you.

The parent to my comment pointed to a most remarkable piece of internet lore,
but it was really about your argument against taking VC. A very quick look
showed that you did exactly what you said you were going to do, with probably
the exact result you indicated. I pointed to TarSnap because that was the
result, and it seemed important to the story. Success? Sure, exactly as
planned, but what about the audience of your original argument, those that
said to go for big venture investment? Surely they still exist here. What do
they think? However, if the story is to be a guidepost for others, it's really
about what you think about your story, and so I think anybody following can be
grateful that you've closed the loop on this. I realize that you could have
interpreted this as some kind of personal slight, and a few did on your
behalf, but it's obvious that you think differently, and your lack of offense
is very telling of your satisfaction. So really you've answered in two ways.
For my part, I don't think that gifted people necessarily owe 'us' their
highest altruistic purpose. Maybe that is between them and whatever higher
power they believe in, or not. But we at least hope that others also respond
to aspirational attention with some kind of honesty, even if we can't possibly
understand. Thank you.

------
tptacek
'graycat on Fedex has to have been the comment that most blew me away:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9282104](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9282104)

Followed closely by 'tzs on Missile Command:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6228350](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6228350)

~~~
yellowstuff
I tracked down an explanation for the 810 bug, although it doesn't actually
clarify why 80 was a magic number.

[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:7Ms9oq...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:7Ms9oquxemEJ:https://www.twingalaxies.com/archive/index.php/t-115947.html+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

------
paul7986
Seeing someone else bravely telling their story and account how the biggest
tech company mistreated them during an interview too...going as far as trying
to steal/patent their work without their consent they demoed during their
interview.

I had been telling my very similar story here of my experience for a few
years, then to see another say same thing with email evidence was vindicating.

Around that time and maybe before more and more negative posts about said
company started and have continued to appear on Hacker News. So her story
along many other things going on I believe helped highlight they do
evil/aren't to be trusted per the image they once sold.

Overall I'm glad she had the courage to post her experience and in turn help
other dreamers/innovators (what my aim was) to not trust this tech company and
highlight they are the opposite of the mantra they sold to the public.

~~~
d3nj4l
Can you link to the comment?

------
saeranv
The first comment (by mikekchar) in response to this student going through a
rough spot:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14312416](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14312416)

~~~
tome
Direct link to the comment:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14312684](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14312684)

------
tandav
Maybe not most favorite but the good one:

The comment is about how to think about "news /social networks addiction":

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13002196](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13002196)

------
bellwether
The first comment (umvi) in this thread I thought was great advice for those
who are ambitious but also practical :)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24261826](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24261826)

~~~
tome
Direct link to comment:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24262337](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24262337)

------
bewuethr
This comment where I first learned about using a bare Git repo for dotfiles
management:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11071754](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11071754)

~~~
narwally
Dammit, now feel like a complete idiot for my mess of a bash script that
creates symlinks all over the place. I guess I know what I'm doing tomorrow
morning.

~~~
roboyoshi
Urgh. Fuck me. I did the same things. How is this not mentioned in any of the
dotfile repos I've seen?!

------
Lammy
joering2's advice on picking a lawyer, which I hope to never need :)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21711221](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21711221)

------
deadcoder0904
Highest signal sales advice I've ever seen:

 _Yes, there are tons of resources but I 'll try to offer some simple tips.

1\. Sales is a lot like golf. You can make it so complicated as to be
impossible or you can simply walk up and hit the ball. I've been leading and
building sales orgs for almost 20 years and my advice is to walk up and hit
the ball.

2\. Sales is about people and it's about problem solving. It is not about
solutions or technology or chemicals or lines of code or artichokes. It's
about people and it's about solving problems.

3\. People buy 4 things and 4 things only. Ever. Those 4 things are time,
money, sex, and approval/peace of mind. If you try selling something other
than those 4 things you will fail.

4\. People buy aspirin always. They buy vitamins only occassionally and at
unpredictable times. Sell aspirin.

5\. I say in every talk I give: "all things being equal people buy from their
friends. So make everything else equal then go make a lot of friends."

6\. Being valuable and useful is all you ever need to do to sell things. Help
people out. Send interesting posts. Write birthday cards. Record videos
sharing your ideas for growing their business. Introduce people who would
benefit from knowing each other then get out of the way, expecting nothing in
return. Do this consistently and authentically and people will find ways to
give you money. I promise.

7\. No one cares about your quota, your payroll, your opex, your burn rate,
etc. No one. They care about the problem you are solving for them.

There is more than 100 trillion dollars in the global economy just waiting for
you to breathe it in. Good luck._

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23285438](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23285438)

------
jodrellblank
Dan Luu's "BestOf HN Comments" collection: [https://danluu.com/hn-
comments/](https://danluu.com/hn-comments/)

------
GistNoesis
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24532382](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24532382)
:)

~~~
Balgair
... Har Har ...

------
hliyan
On indicators of employee happiness:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20571219](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20571219)

------
surround
List of most-favorited HN comments:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24360449](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24360449)

------
papeda
I got a lot out of some posts made by a user named arkades about why the
nature of medical reimbursement in the US contributes to physician burnout:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22057249](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22057249)

------
rottc0dd
I am newb here, but I found this to be hilarious.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13142737](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13142737)

Also, this one was nice.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15107536](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15107536)

Edit: Formatting

------
ananthrk
The legendary "putnam" one, ofcourse:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079)

------
MaxBarraclough
Nowhere near as profound as many other comments listed here already, but
here's a 2015 comment by _haberman_ that stuck with me for some reason, on how
modern operating systems have learnt that 'grand abstractions' don't belong in
the OS.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9807777](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9807777)

------
wglb
Mine is the greatest comeback on HN, including comments 'pg

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079)

"As a matter of fact, I did"

------
bbody
My favorite is
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15797391](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15797391),
it is a reply to a story about a time traveler coming back warning us about
Bitcoin.

------
ycombinete
This one about alien life, and why carbon based life, like our own, makes so
much sense:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24115661](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24115661)

------
sloshnmosh
“I’ve seen how the burrito is made and I ain’t hungry”

Discussing Android apps and trackers.

------
totemandtoken
From Nostrademons:

"I predict that Libra will work for a while, but will eventually be
overshadowed either by competitors or by the new markets that it enables.

There's this pattern I've noticed where every major tech company, once initial
traction has been established, gets three pivots. You can think of them as
adolescence, mid-life, and rebirth.

The first pivot happens when the company is 5-8 years old (since the 1970s at
least; older before then), and serves to define the company. The System 360
for IBM, defining it as the provider of mainframes for enterprises. MS-DOS for
Microsoft, defining it as the dominant PC OS. The Macintosh for Apple,
defining it as the most user-friendly consumer brand out there. GMail and Maps
for Google, defining it as the conglomerate of the Internet age. Mobile for
Facebook, defining it as the service that connects people regardless of where
they are.

The second pivot happens when the company is 10-15, at the height of its
dominance, and usually results from it entering the hottest new technology
wave with a vengeance. It looks like it succeeds for a while, crushes early
entrants, serves to legitimize that technology wave, but ultimately peters out
as the company can't keep up with the changes that it introduces. The IBM PC
for IBM, which legitimized the PC market but ultimately fell to clones.
Internet Explorer for Microsoft, which legitimized the Internet but ultimately
was eclipsed by Google's many products. The Newton for Apple, which
legitimized the PDA market but ultimately was too early. Google+ for Google,
which legitimized social networking but ultimately failed to gain traction.

The third pivot is when the company realizes that they basically incapable of
innovating, and returns to the roots they established with the first pivot to
live out their old age. Open-source consulting for IBM, leveraging their
massive installed base of enterprise customers. VS Code, XBox, and Azure for
Microsoft, recognizing that they are fundamentally a platforms company. The
iPhone and iPad for Apple, refocusing on their strengths in UX and delivering
top-quality consumer electronics products. Alphabet for Google, realizing that
they're fundamentally a conglomerate that lets a thousand flowers bloom (and
cancels 990 of them).

Libra is Facebook's second pivot. It'll look like it succeeds for a while,
it'll legitimize cryptocurrency, but it'll ultimately end up eclipsed by what
it creates. "

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20210791](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20210791)

~~~
StavrosK
Generally interesting, but it's somewhat telling that the one prediction it
made failed miserably.

~~~
totemandtoken
I agree, but I still think the idea of looking at a company through its pivots
is an interesting analysis. There is a lot of survivor's bias in this comment,
but that's generally the case when talking about companies

------
artemave
I stash mine here
[https://twitter.com/hackercomments?s=21](https://twitter.com/hackercomments?s=21)

------
joshxyz
Those guys with 700 to 1.5k tabs lol

~~~
throw_this_one
The real reason people upgrade to 32/64gb of ram.

------
cercatrova
This one about whether designers are crazy because the OP didn't understand
why designers would care about minute details in their work. It is because
attention to detail creates superlative work. It is similar to why premature
optimization isn't _necessarily_ bad for engineers.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5002262](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5002262)

"""

No, designers aren't crazy. You just don't understand a very fundamental
concept of design. It even applies to engineering. It's okay—many people have
the same frustrations as you do.

But those who care about the details achieve truly high quality results
overall. It extends to all areas of the design, not just to the parts you
can't see.

In the movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," there's a scene in a dark room where
Roger Rabbit (an animated character) flies across the room, knocks a hanging
lamp around, and the lighting becomes so dynamic that all the shadows move
around including the animated character's shadow. Here's the scene in
question:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EUPwsD64GI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EUPwsD64GI)

This was such a small detail that it would have been forgivable if the
animators had left it out entirely: if they had not moved the lamp, kept the
shadow steady, no one would have really noticed the difference. It would have
been 100 times easier to animate and the effect wouldn't really have been that
different.

But they did it anyway. The term was later coined, and "bump the lamp" is used
throughout Disney (and probably other organizations) to mean something akin to
"go the extra mile"—but I see it as having a special significance to design.

You're right, most people won't notice. By that logic, you could cut corners a
lot of other places too. You could be lax about button colors matching
exactly, or per-pixel sharpness on the map and buttons. No one would probably
notice.

But if you go for every detail like it was the most important detail, you have
the possibility of reaching a level of design quality that is superlative, and
some people will notice. Others will not notice directly, but will see that
the piece exudes style and quality subconsciously, due to the attention to
small details. If you carry this into other areas of your work—programming,
customer service, market strategy, marketing, and more—then you have a chance
to create something of true quality.

If you don't pay attention to detail at that level, well, you might have the
chance to actually get something done. Yes, it's a balance, like everything
else. But you have to know that it won't be quite as good, and understand that
yes, you are sacrificing something, even if you can't see it.

"""

------
chris_wot
Some guy asked cpercival if he had won the Putnam. He had.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35083](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35083)

------
wallflower
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=121413](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=121413)

> fiaz MANY days ago | parent | favorite | on: Ask News.YC: How to re-motivate
> yourself?

> APOLOGIES for making this post so annoyingly long, but I really hope you
> find value in the words below.
> \----------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm
> going to first share a personal experience from my early trading days to
> illustrate where I'm coming from. I used to wake up at 4:30 am everyday in
> the Chicago suburbs to beat rush hour traffic and make it into downtown
> Chicago at 6:30 am. In order to wake up so early, I fell into a habit of
> sleeping at 9:00 pm and like a robot waking up at 4:30 am. This simple
> routine was indirectly helpful when things seemed darkest.

For the first six months, I lost money and was ridiculed constantly by other
traders who were more successful than me (which was about 20 other guys
CONSTANTLY using me as a punching/whipping bag). The only thing that kept me
going was the fact that some of the very same traders that would be making
wise cracks at me for losing money were some of the most successful people I
knew at the time. For better or worse, if I needed a trader to model myself
after, it was the same people that were telling me how bad a trader I was -
and although I was not open to really hear what they were saying, they were
right about my skills in every way (but their feedback was always packaged in
some sort of insult). After racking up some rather hefty losses, I was
determined to quit at one point during month four, but because I had a habit
of waking up at 4:30 am I simply "forgot" that the night before I told myself
I would quit and spare myself further humiliation...by then I was warned that
I was now on the red list of traders ready to be cut. Also, my personal
savings were starting to approach zero (the base "draw" for house traders was
enough to pay for food; you usually make your money on a percentage of your
profits, and I was deep in the red at the time).

To say the least, there were many excellent reasons to be "reasonable", forget
about my dreams, and quit. After 4 consecutive "failures to quit", I realized
that I didn't quit because somewhere deep down I was hanging on to a dream,
however remote at that point: that I could somehow be as successful as the
other traders that I knew. At the same time I realized that I had hit rock
bottom in that I couldn't even succeed in failing! Very tough times indeed...
An interesting point to note here is that although my losses were starting to
get very large, the people who were funding me as a trader kept me because I
had one redeeming quality: EFFORT, and this helped build tenacity. Other
traders who barely traded but had a fraction of my losses were cut much faster
because they didn't put forth much effort. They were not willing to take
losses and be bold/brave and fight it out; I was willing to take risks, and
this saved me from getting cut faster than others.

Slowly I began to reinterpret the constant humiliation I was suffering:
perhaps the other traders were right about their "jokes" and there might be
something in what they are saying that will help me get out of the red. I also
realized that since I had failed at quitting (which was now the ULTIMATE
failure), there was no further failure for me and that if I took baby steps
they were surely to succeed (this translated into taking smaller
trades/profits).

Only after improving upon my abilities as a trader and channeling my energies
appropriately did I succeed and earn everybody's respect as a trader (and you
have no idea how this made me feel!). I quickly made enough in commissions to
be trading my own account, and be successful as an independent trader onward.
When I look back at those final months of 1999 (yeah that's right, I was
losing huge cash at the end of 1999 when the entire market was going crazy
UP!), there was more good than bad even when I was getting my ass handed to
me. It's just that I was intentionally creating my own feedback (I'm right
everybody else is wrong) instead of seeing the results I was getting
(losses/insults) as feedback and information that would help me be successful.

I kind of snicker every time I see somebody ask for feedback on their startup
on YC.News only to end up justifying themselves by telling everybody why they
did what they did when they get negative feedback, which is the feedback of
greatest value. If somebody tells you how crappy your idea is, thank them that
they even spent a few brain cycles considering your idea.

The lessons I learned from this that are perhaps relevant to your questions:

\- Determine if you believe in yourself to succeed as an individual (I know
this sounds odd, but for a moment just examine your thought patterns and your
actions and see what message you are sending to yourself; do you listen to the
voice that says you can't or are you paying attention to the feedback from
your efforts and the results you are getting?)

\- Search deep down inside and see if the project you are working on is
something you believe in or not. If you can't sell yourself, then you
shouldn't bother trying any further...

\- ANY attention you get for your efforts is good attention. If you get LOTS
of negative feedback, then be grateful - you've jumped the first hurdle of
getting people to give a damn about what you are doing! :)

\- There is responsibility and accountability that goes with both success and
failure. You need to be ready for both because they can be equally painful in
equal ways. The amount of accountability that comes with success can be more
unbearable than the accountability that accompanies failure. I personally know
of some very talented people who enjoyed phenomenal initial success only to
find just as fast that they were in over their heads.

\- The more you resist the possibility of failure then you are less likely to
recognize possibilities that will help you succeed. If you are afraid to fail,
then most certainly you are afraid to succeed. This sounds counterintuitive
but it's based upon the fact that fear makes your mind less supple and less
responsive to the changes that will push you out of the game - or conversely
it will lessen the impulse to jump on the opportunities you need to succeed.

\- The results you get has everything to do with your users/market and less to
do with you as an individual; it's sometimes hard to separate these two. See
the other side of the equation and what side you are on before trying to solve
it. Don't ever think you are above the feedback of your users...EVER!

\- Don't have expectations (this is just setting yourself up for failure).
Because you are starting out you may not know what is best to help you succeed
- ESPECIALLY if you're lacking motivation. Keep in mind that whatever results
you get from your efforts will lead to more possibilities (in the form of
additional information).

\- Have some behavioral "context" within which to exercise discipline and
structure. Seek to grow your efforts within this context. My context was my
sleep schedule. It was a routine that was so ingrained that my drive had a
laser focus. This might not work for some, but it worked for me. Finally, I
will add that in my opinion failing hard and fast is MUCH better than failing
slowly. The faster you know for certain something isn't going to work out, the
sooner you can cut your losses and move on to your next idea. When you
eventually succeed, you will look back at all the times you were quick to cut
your losses and get to where you are...
\---------------------------------------------------------

Please do NOT contact me asking for advice in trading/investing. This is a
VERY personal thing, and it has everything to do with who you are, NOT with
how much information you have, or which tools you use, or who you know.

------
indentit
I really like this comment about learning to cope with programming when
requirements keep changing:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24543596](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24543596)

> From where I sit (a backend developer, thoroughly burned out by webdev a
> couple years ago), most of coding I do is software bureaucracy. Turn this
> data into that data, ensuring module X and Y get paged in the process. Oh,
> half of the code I'm about to write is implemented elsewhere - quick, figure
> out how to juggle the dependency graph to somehow route control from here to
> there and back. This data I want to convert is not of the right colour - oh,
> I need to pass it through three sets of conversion layers to get back
> essentially the same, but with a correct type tag on it. Etc.

> It's utterly and mind-numbingly boring, unless you architectured the whole
> codebase yourself, at which point it's somewhat fun because it's your
> codebase, and who doesn't like their own Rube Goldberg machines?

> At this point, I've learned a coping strategy: just forget the project scope
> and focus on your little plot of land. Doesn't matter that the software I
> wrote half of is going to help people do exciting stuff with industrial
> robots. What matters is that the customer changed some small and irrelevant
> piece of requirements for the 5th time, and I now have to route some data
> from the front to the back, through the other half of the code, written by
> my co-worker (a fine coder, btw.). So a bunch of layers of code bureaucracy
> I'm not familiar with, and discovering which feels like learning how to fill
> tax forms in a foreign country. If I start thinking about the industrial
> robots I'll just get depressed, so instead I focus on making the best jump
> through legacy code possible, so that I impress myself and my code reviewer
> (and hopefully make the 6th time I'm visiting this pit easier on everyone).

> Maybe it's a problem of perceptions. Like in the modern military - you join
> because you think you'll get to fly a helicopter and shoot shoulder-mounted
> rockets for daily exercise. You get there and you realize it's just hard
> physical work, a bit of mental abuse, and a lot of doing nothing useful in
> particular (at least until you advance high enough or quit). And so I
> started coding, dreaming I'll be lording over pixels on the screens,
> animating machine golems, and helping rockets reach their desired orbits.
> Instead, I'm spending endless days pushing people to simplify the
> architecture, so that I can shove my data through four levels of indirection
> instead of six (and get the software to run 10x faster in the process), and
> all that to rearrange some data on the screen that really should've been
> just given away to people on an Excel sheet with a page of instructions
> attached.

------
Arjuna
Originally posted by OrdaGarb on April 26th, 2015...

I have a slight fascination with sweeteners. About five years ago I imported a
kilo of "Neotame" sweetener from a chem factory in Shanghai. It was claimed to
be 10,000-12,000 times sweeter than sugar. It's a white powder and came in a
metal can with a crimped lid and typically plain chemical labeling. Supposedly
it is FDA-approved and a distant derivative of aspartame.

US customs held it for two weeks before sending it on to Colorado with no
explanation. When received, the box was covered in "inspected" tape and they
had put the canister in a clear plastic bag. The crimped lid looked like a
rottweiler chewed it open and white powder was all over the inside of the bag.
I unwisely opened this in my kitchen with no respirator as advised by the MSDS
which I read after the fact (I am not a smart man).

Despite careful handling of the bag, it is so fine in composition that a small
cloud of powder erupted in front of me and a hazy layer of the stuff settled
over the kitchen. Eyes burning and some mild choking from inhaling the cloud,
I instantly marveled at how unbelievably sweet the air tasted, and it was
delicious. For several hours I could still taste it on my lips. The poor
customs inspector will have had a lasting memory of that container I'm pretty
sure.

Even after a thorough wipe-down, to this day I encounter items in my kitchen
with visually imperceptible amounts of residue. After touching it and getting
even microscopic quantities of the stuff on a utensil or cup, bowl, plate,
whatever, it adds an intense element of sweetness to the food being prepared,
sometimes to our delight. I still have more than 900g even after giving away
multiple baggies to friends and family (with proper safety precautions).

We have been hooked on it since that first encounter. I keep a 100mL bottle of
solution in the fridge which is used to fill smaller dropper bottles. I've
prepared that 100mL bottle three times over five years, and that works out to
about 12g of personal (somewhat heavy) usage for two people in that time.
Probably nowhere near the LD50.

I carry a tiny 30mL dropper bottle of the solution for sweetening the nasty
office coffee and anything else as appropriate. Four drops to a normal cup of
coffee. We sweeten home-carbonated beverages, oatmeal, baked goods (it is heat
stable), use it in marinades, and countless other applications.

I don't know if it's safe. The actual quantity used is so incredibly tiny that
it seems irrelevant. I'd sweeten my coffee with polonium-210 if it could be
done in Neotame-like quantities. Between this, a salt shaker loaded with MSG
and a Darwin fish on my car, I'm doomed anyway.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9440566](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9440566)

------
adverbly
This

------
veidr
I'm sad I can't find my favorite comment, and have actually searched for it on
multiple occasions.

It wasn't a good comment, it was a bad comment — I am only sharing it on the
off chance that somebody else will remember and post the link.

The discussion had veered to bicycle helmets: should they be required, is
there innovation to be realized in their design, something like that.

Somebody posted some comment about definitely wanting people to have a helmet
when they crash their bike and hit their head on the curb, and some other
person became incensed at their evidence-free assertion that wearing a helmet
would be helpful when crashing one's bike and having one's head hit the curb.
The incensed party demanded links to scientifically rigorous studies, rather
than some layperson's hunch, that helmet wearing would be beneficial in this
particular circumstance.

I laughed out loud when I read it, because it so pithily and absurdly
epitomized what is often _wrong_ with this website.

~~~
johnchristopher
Wait, could that be me ? I had that exact conversation on HN. I was the one
asking for studies (and my previous comment was sthg like "helmets should be
mandatory" then I was told "do you realize it increases injuries ?" then I ask
for proof) and the reasoning in the studies was that making helmets mandatory
decreased car drivers' attention to cyclists making them less cautious around
them, resulting in more serious injuries.

Strangely neither can I find those comments at the time.

I have the fuzzy memory that it was about a bikes around Sydney or Australia
but HN comments tend to derail from the initial submission so I can't be sure.

edit: found it !
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4262081](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4262081)

~~~
veidr
That is not the comment I was referring to — sounds reasonable to me!

(The comment I am looking for also started rather emotionally, something like
"Ugh I hate — HATE — when people... (make assumptions like this without
evidence, something something)". And then possibly invoked the names of a
couple of logical fallacies.

(T_T) I thought I'd be able to find it with the double "hate", but I can't...
it was some years ago too, at least 4-5, so I am probably mis-remembering.

~~~
johnchristopher
Well, my first comment in this thread is a rant:

> I am always annoyed with articles promoting safe cycling when illustrating
> pictures show cyclists without helmets or any other form of protective
> gears.

> In Belgium there is a small movement promoting bikes and there are all kind
> of hipsters, bobo and 50 years old grey hair vegan on fake vintage bikes
> riding without helmets and without any sense of road conduct. Good bikers
> wearing yellow jackets and helmets are really rare ; I am beginning to think
> the formers are ruining the latters's image.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4261122](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4261122)

------
timvisee
This one.

------
thinkingemote
I used to like the writings of a user called something like Marin Country
until they were banned! I liked the anecdotes, flow of words, way of speaking.
He was a retired programmer with lots of stories and fell across the lines of
policial correctness (which moves every year) and got banned.

~~~
indy
If a user is banned do their comments disappear?

