
Hacker News Front Page Snapshot from Last Night - dstein64
http://hhn.domador.net/2011/10/05/23/
======
MatthewB
I still can't believe Steve Jobs is gone. I don't think I've ever felt this
sad about someone I've never met.

I always thought I would meet Steve eventually, especially since I finally
moved to Silicon Valley recently. He will always be my hero and an inspiration
to me in every aspect of my life.

~~~
wuster
16-year Mac user here - I wouldn't go to the extent of saying Jobs changed my
life. Apple devices influenced how I got my work done, which is non-trivial,
but I won't idol worship him in an emotional manner. He's still only human
just like the rest of us.

~~~
hesdeadjim
So you can't feel sad for someone dying without it being idol worship? And
what about those of us whose lives he directly changed, is it unfair for us to
feel a greater sense of loss?

In fact, it is his humanity that I respect and mourn the most: his drive to
better himself and the world around him, an uncompromising vision in the face
of adversity, and an unwillingness to give up.

~~~
wuster
Perhaps it's a generational gap. I am under 30, so I only became familiar with
Macs in the mid-90s. I can understand those of you who grew up in the late 70s
- mid 80s and have much more nostalgic sentiments towards Apple and the
Macintosh. It created industries and careers that didn't previously exist.

------
mike-cardwell
I would like to see what happened to the traffic on this site yesterday. I
spent considerably less time here than average because of the lack of tech
news.

~~~
billjings
Initially, it was slammed.

------
jessedhillon
Has anyone else noticed the black band (actually a table row) at the top of
HN? I only noticed it yesterday, so I'm assuming it's pg's way of signifying
that HN is mourning the loss of Steve Jobs.

~~~
Locke1689
It appears when someone important to the community passes away.

------
uniclaude
Two things are very interesting to me here:

\- This 100% Steve Jobs page was _actually_ organically generated.

\- Several members of the community took screen/snapshots yesterday when they
discovered the frontpage like this.

Those things make me realize how like-minded can some of the members in this
community be.

~~~
potatolicious
It's not just the HN crowd - I walked by the SF Apple Store today and the
front windows were covered in post-it notes full of thoughts from passers by.
I know we in the tech world followed his every little move, but it surprised
me how much, well, _regular people_ cared.

I've never seen this kind of reaction for the death of any famous person who
isn't a politician/community leader.

~~~
n0on3
"I've never seen this kind of reaction for the death of any famous person who
isn't a [...] community leader." < Fact is, he was :) ..at least sort of..

------
nec4b
For a community that takes pride in being intelectual, this is pretty sad and
bordeline to religius worship. The black band and a single thread where one
could express his appreciation for the deceased would be respectful and
enough.

------
cwp
Actually, I had been offline all afternoon, and only learned of it when I
opened up HN. I was stunned by the top story, and it was good 3 or 4 minutes
before I noticed that the entire front page was devoted to Steve. At that
point I got something in my eye and had to close my laptop.

------
catshirt
in case it's not clear from the comments, op is most certainly a _snapshot_.
surprisingly cooler than a screenshot.

~~~
felipemnoa
What is the difference?

~~~
aculver
All of the links are clickable.

~~~
easyfrag
This us the kind of detail Steve Jobs is being remembered for.

------
ck2
I've made a filtered feed that removes most of those stories

<http://feeds.feedburner.com/hacker-news-filtered>

I'll delete it after the weekend to respect PG (after the news-cycle finally
breaks).

~~~
gbog
What I would be looking for is a diversity enforcer.

------
petercooper
You can see every single hour at <http://hackerslide.com/>

~~~
wxl24life
It's really great!

------
dstein64
This was the first time I have seen the entire front page consisting of
articles on one topic. The snapshot is from 11pm PDT, and it is from a site
that archives the Hacker News front page.

~~~
cosgroveb
I was shocked last night when I counted 27 articles about Steve Jobs and three
about other stuff.

~~~
jacobolus
For a while it was 30/30, and about 55 or 56 out of the 60 in the top two
pages.

------
DiabloD3
I counted last night that not only was the first page 30/30 Saint Jobs, but
the second page was at least half Jobs.

Really, the man made an impact on everyone. I wonder why it took until he died
for everyone to realize it?

~~~
mechanical_fish
People realized it all along. It just wasn't the time for everyone to say so
at once.

Mourning time is that time.

It won't last forever. Mourning doesn't, and shouldn't, last forever. Which is
all the more reason to make it count now, when it is appropriate.

------
matthewlehner
This is good to see - I don't think any one person has had more influence on
the way we use computers/technology than Steve did.

It felt good to know that someone with his vision also had the power to create
and guide new technologies and inovations within many industries. Now that
singular force is gone. Hopefully Apple, or the other major players are able
to continue to innovate and not just add better specs and more features.

~~~
geoka9
> I don't think any one person has had more influence on the way we use
> computers/technology than Steve did.

Just wondering, if I don't use macs, smartphones and tablets, do I still owe
it to him for the way I use computers/technology?

~~~
rcthompson
Yes. Any major operating system or computing device from the last decade or so
(give or take a few decades) has been in stiff competition with the operating
systems and computing devices that Apple produced under Steve Jobs, and they
have all been strongly influenced by (modeled after?) those Apple products
with which they competed. Even something as basic as his insistence that
things should be easy to use forced everyone else to improve their products'
usability, even change the way they think about designing software in order to
make usability a priority, in order to catch up.

~~~
geoka9
How do you know?

EDIT: oh, I really don't know about that. I spend my days using GNU/Linux,
Emacs, C/C++ (GCC) and related free libraries/tools. Even my window manager is
emacs-user friendly. If anybody, the most influential person wrt my computing
is Richard Stallman.

~~~
hrabago
It trickles down, particularly when it comes to someone as influential as
Steve Jobs. You may not have used any of his products directly, but as shown
by this snapshot, he has influenced an entire generation of great number of
people, going beyond technology.

Some of these people take bits and pieces of the design principles and apply
it to their work. Some of them take lessons shared by Mr. Jobs in his speeches
or interviews because they look up to him, and apply those in their work. Mr.
Page and Mr. Brin says they looked up to Jobs as model. Windows improved by
paying attention to what Mac comes up with. Steve Jobs helped propel the
industry forward, so even if you never used any of his products directly, it's
a good bet you still benefited from his innovations.

------
ComputerGuru
If any man deserved this, Steve Jobs most certainly did.

~~~
romaniv
However, there are plenty of people whose contribusions to humanity wastly
exceed what Jobs did. Would they get this kind of coverage if deceased? I
seriously doubt that.

~~~
antihero
It's annoying - I mean yes he made some excellent products and an arguably
visionary ability to capitalise on consumers, but most of his products were
hardly original - he just took existing ideas and made them more user friendly
and pretty.

~~~
geogra4
That's the whole point. Henry Ford didn't invent the automobile but that
didn't mean he had no impact in how quickly it was adopted!

------
ahuibers
<http://news.ycombinator.com/over?points=3000>

~~~
nhebb
And patrickthomas went from 0 to 3335 karma in a single post.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Pretty cool, 724 days, no comments, one submission, 3346 karma. Probably not
something work trying to avoid in a web based reputation system.

~~~
coldarchon
Doesn't it show how useless global karma is? Besides, I never voted someone
down, I just ignore or vote up ..

~~~
bane
Karma should probably best work on a 1-year rolling window. Your karma score
only shows the last year's worth of karma, so it encourages activity.

~~~
ramchip
I don't think encouraging activity is necessarily good. A lot of comments do
not really contribute something useful to the discussion. I'd rather people
just posted when they have something really useful or insightful to say. Less
comments means less time wasted for the readers.

------
chj
A hacker doesn't have to write code to be respected.

------
mahyarm
I thought PG put a filter on only Steve Jobs stories because of his death.

~~~
pg
No, it was organic.

~~~
gbog
And annoying. Did you consider adding a filter to increase diversity?

~~~
gbog
Wow, lost a lot of karma with this. Anyone cares to explain downvotes? Most
links about SJ yesterday did not follow HN guidelines about intellectual
curiosity, in my understanding, please clarify if I'm wrong.

~~~
dredmorbius
Take the downvotes (no, I didn't) as a read of how at odds your PoV is with
that of, well, however many people took the time to downvote you.

I'm _not_ a Mac fanatic, I'm _not_ a worshipper of all things Steve, I _don't_
use any of Apple's products on a daily basis (though I work with a bunch of
people who do).

And despite this, his contributions shape and influence my life every day. The
WIMP interface, proportional fonts, WindowMaker (derived from NeXT), much of
the Web (as others noted, Macs dominate both graphic design and much Web
development), music, electronic books and media, movies, and probably a bunch
of stuff I'm forgetting.

Look around you right now. Wherever it is you happen to be right now. Every
human artifact in your presence was designed, marketed, and manufactured by
someone. Every idea in your books, video, or music collections. The scientific
concepts behind your electricity, plumbing, and communications. The artistic
concepts behind literature and (again) music.

Some people's influence truly outshines the ordinary, and some of these people
are even recognized for it. Occasionally you'll be fortunate enough to share
time on the planet with such a mind.

Sure, they might be assholes in person or have other flaws, but their
contributions are still real and recognizable.

We've lost a genius, a visionary, a creative force, and someone who's touched
billions of lives.

As I said: I'm hardly among Steve's biggest fans. But I recognize his
greatness and mourn his passing.

Maybe someday you'll understand. I hope so for your sake.

~~~
gbog
Thanks for explaining, but it is not to the point. I did not express any
disregard for Steve Jobs, it would have been displaced. I did express concerns
about the fact that during one day, HN had nothing else on the front page.

~~~
mvts
You ask to much. Maybe you can stay calm and read the 10'000th article on
node.js while half of the world mourns one of the greatest visionaries of the
last decades. I can't.

------
iqster
Like many here, I've been feeling really down because of Steve's passing. At
first, it was confusing ... I never even met the guy. Why am I grieving so
much? Seeing all the posts on HN and FB, it is comforting to know it's not
just me who never met him, and yet is profoundly sad at his passing. He was a
personal hero to so many of us.

------
dlikhten
I was actually worried it would not go away. Fortunately today is back-to-
business minus a few posts.

------
doc_larry
Steve's death just underlines how real his Stanford commencent speech hits
home. His life certainly had its ups and downs, but through it all he
persevered and fought for that he felt was true and was worth it. Although his
accomplishements went beyond what anyone would have possibly dreamed (aside
from himself) there are so many people around us who are also heroes of the
real world. We mourn today a great man and in a sense we hold hommage to all
of those people who strive to make this world a better place. Rest in peace
Steve, may God bless you and your family

------
robjohnson
This shows the incredible influence that Steve had on the tech community.
Unlike others who have disrupted the world like him, we can at least be glad
that he got to witness the incredible impact that he had.

------
chokma
Hacker News: no other news on that day.

<http://images.schedim.de/hacker_news_steve_jobs.png>

(from Do 06 Okt 2011 09:15:01 CEST)

------
dstein64
Here is a PDF that I captured at 11:34pm EST, that also has 30/30 articles on
Steve Jobs. I was going to post a link to this, until I found the snapshot.

[https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chro...](https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0BwIUSOeTfraBMTIyOWFjMTUtNDk3MC00YWI5LWEzMWYtZTQxMDUzNjVhYTBk&hl=en_US)

------
BobSacamano
Here's my screen grab, 1:41 PM, 06-10-11, (UTC+09:30)
<http://i.imgur.com/boohg.png>

------
morsch
I took a screenshot of the Slashdot firehose (ie. the incoming/recent stories
page, not the front page) when the news broke:
<http://morsch.soup.io/post/174107125/Steve-Jobs-Dead-At-56>

------
wazoox
I don't actually care about Steve Jobs death, despite my MacBook, my PowerBook
520c and my Apple //c. I'd probably be sad if Woz passed away.

The only public figure death that really saddened me at the time was Miles
Davis'. I remember that so vividly.

------
afsgdhfj
[http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/news/hardware/Steve-...](http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/news/hardware/Steve-
Jobs-authorized-biography-so-his-kids-can-know-him/articleshow/10261690.cms)

------
neetij
Noticed the same thing and started adding to a small collection of tributes
from various sites: <http://gim.ie/bfmX>

------
snippyhollow
I did this snapshot (we see more clearly): <http://i.imgur.com/pkT8z.png>

------
artursapek
I got one as well. <http://i.imgur.com/dZife.jpg>

Unanimous, save for one story on Linux.

~~~
X-Istence
That one disappeared to page 3 rather quickly.

------
Nican
Here is my share at 11:16:14 PM
[http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5927713/ZScreen/Hacker_News_-
_Google...](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5927713/ZScreen/Hacker_News_-
_Google_Chrome-2011-10-05_23.16.14.png)

------
cme
The way it should be!

------
nhebb
I did a screen grab at ~10:00 PM PST. I never planned on posting it, but I
felt it was the "where were you when you found out JFK / Elvis / etc. died"
moment of the tech generation and wanted to capture it.

------
shreex
yet another screengrab 30/30: <http://i.imgur.com/T3CxH.png>

------
supjeff
Leave the meta nonsense to reddit.

------
j45
I have my screenshot too from last night. 8:57 PM PST.

<http://i.imgur.com/SVokO.png>

------
antoncohen
30 of 30 at 8:52 PM PDT. The second page was about 25 of 30.

<http://goo.gl/7o53T>

------
adrianwaj
2 hours earlier <http://hackerbra.in/steve.png>

------
0ffw0rlder
What is with the SJ worship on reddit/HN? Apple continues to make overpriced
hardware (compare to T and W series thinkpads xD) which almost always
sacrifices form for function. Want to put an esata/fibre/ port on your laptop?
- only one MBP allows it. OS X is a toy os for people who don't want to run
windows (excell/MSVS) or linux. Sure, put the iWhatever in the museum of
modern art, but just about any business-clas laptop will run linux.

~~~
srl
Just to say: my MBP runs linux (arch) well better than any of my friend's
business-class laptops.

(Also, I think you meant to say "function for form".)

------
skatenerd
"sup dog"

~~~
skatenerd
I thought it was legitimately worth pointing out that there is a popular post
on hacker news that is _about_ hacker news.

I apologize for inappropriately using a meme to make that point.

------
dgallagher
Another one: <http://dave-gallagher.net/pics/hn_ipad.png>

------
_moyo
yea u seen the same exact thing but different post

------
macrael
Thank you for shareing. I'd feared that I wouldn't get to save that moment.

