
HN Spoof - norswap
http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=193b767bbb3b0eb0d949d5924&id=0c3a567f95&e=5603c292b3
======
nicholasjbs
Some background, since I helped write this and don't actually think this is a
great thing to be on HN:

My friend Dave and I started the LinkedList a while ago as a weekly events
newsletter for programmers in New York. After 70+ issues, we got burnt out on
meetups (<http://www.linkedlistnyc.org/archive/issue_075.html>), and have been
experimenting with other formats for the past few months.

We write the List exclusively for our own fun, and lately it's mostly been
satire (e.g., <http://www.linkedlistnyc.org/archive/issue_076.html>)

Mods, feel free to delete the post if you see fit.

~~~
jerf
Contrary to popular belief, HN does not have an informal "no humor" policy; HN
has an informal "no _cheap_ humor" policy. We (if I may presume to speak for
the general community) don't want links to meme images or cheap recitations of
popular quotes from TV or movies or something, but if you put some work into
it to good result, it's great. Be not ashamed. This was pretty funny at
several points. I especially enjoyed the adjectives on the comment counts.

~~~
kmfrk
There is an anti-Christmas policy, however:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3364516>. :)

------
madrona
XOR, “The Tricky One”: advanced Boolean logic for nontechnical founders
(scribd)

Make Fucking Linkbait With a Punchy Expletive

I learned how to program the HTML this weekend. Here’s what I learned

How to defeat procrastination using Chrome plugins

~~~
Tloewald
As an aside, I think it's logical OR that's tricky for non technical/math
types since XOR more closely matches common usage.

~~~
lmm
What? No it doesn't. When people say "No bare ankles or shoulders", that
doesn't mean it's ok if you bare both of them.

~~~
bvdbijl
I think he means when it is used like "coffee or tea?"

~~~
lmm
The answer to that when one wants both coffee and tea is "yes" rather than
"no".

------
madrona
Hilarious. Some suggestions: "Stop doing XXXX now", "YYYY is dead", and
"Google's I'm Feeling Lucky button disappears: the beginning of the end?"

Here's a similar spoof from 13 years ago. Wow, Slashdot really hasn't changed
much, has it? <http://www.suck.com/daily/99/12/13/daily.html>

~~~
ImprovedSilence
zzzz is broken....

------
ojiikun
Oh, how I am yearning for the inclusion of a _"Discussion of Language Design
As If Ruby and Python Were The Only Two Languages Ever Made"_ article followed
by some article with a snarky title about Java and C++ devs quietly making
hillariously large stacks of cash and ignoring new languages. :D

------
atomical
I'm tired of reading articles or e-mails that begin with, "This one tip could
increase conversions 250% if you put it in practice." This one tip spans four
pages and yet could be condensed into one sentence. The funny thing is that
the bulk of the four pages have nothing to do with the tip and everything to
do with sounding hip. I see more and more articles like this on HN from so-
called business geniuses. It really makes me crave boring business books.

~~~
dredmorbius
The self-help / self-improvement literature has a default form that was
established well over a century ago.

Pick up and read Dale Carnegie's _How to Win Friends and Influence People_.
Page through Eugen Sandow's _Strength and How To Obtain It_. Each starts with
a personal biography that is in sum: once I was weak / ineffective / socially
awkward, now I am not, here's my story of transformation.

It's eerie how similar contemporary works are in following the same formula.

------
davewasthere
Cracked me up seeing the 'same shoe' posts having just written something
similar myself (<http://davebeer.com/posts/wearing-the-same-shoes/>).

Not that I'd submit it as a story to HN. But it did make me thing I'm closer
to a parody than not.

------
edw519
I know these kinds of things aren't the best for HN, but every once in a
while, you gotta have _some_ fun.

Great job, OP.

On 12/31/09, I did one of these as a 10 year prediction. Funny how some things
change and some don't:

Hacker News 12/31/2019 new | comments | leaders | jobs | submit login

    
    
      1. Tell HN: Congratulations Patio11 - first to reach 1,000,000 karma
         4 points by iamelgringo 1 hour ago | discuss
    
      2. Ask HN: Any Predictions for the Year 2029?
         11 points by DanielBMarkham 37 minutes ago | 8 comments
    
      3. The Apple Tablet to Launch 1st Quarter 2020 (cnet.com)
         210 points by vaksel 20 hours ago | 122 comments
    
      4. President-Elect Graham to Appoint Sam Altman to Cabinet (msnbc.com)
         14 points by muriithi 4 hours ago | 2 comments
    
      5. Trevor Blackwell's Robot Collects Rocks on Mars (science.com)
         143 points by ojbyrne 18 hours ago | 81 comments
    
      6. Tell HN: Hacker News is getting too much like reddit
         17 points by jamesjones 6 hours ago | 3 comments
    
      7. Last Land Line Disconnected at Midnight (cnn.com)
         6 points by chickamade 3 hours ago | discuss
    
      8. Mark Zuckerman buys Portugal (worldnews.com)
         51 points by larryz 14 hours ago | 16 comments
    
      9. How Half Our Staff Telecommutes from Space (joelonsoftware.com)
         45 points by jspolsky 13 hours ago | 2 comments
      
      10. No Deadlines Needed After Singularity is Reached (wired.com)
          44 points by bxgame 14 hours ago | 28 comments
    
      11. Ask pg: Why do YC teams only get $1,000,000?
          19 points by abcklm 9 hours ago | 5 comments
    
      12. KidneyExchange.com has 10,000th successful transplant (yahoo.com)
          23 points by phsr 10 hours ago | 7 comments
    
      13. Walmart Acquires Microsoft (wallstreetjournal.com)
          76 points by francis24 20 hours ago | 17 comments
    
      14. Baby Communicates from Womb via usb23.7 (scientificamerican.com)
          13 points by johnson 8 hours ago | 7 comments
    
      15. Mark Bao Starts 1,000th Start-Up (startupnews.com)
          4 points by MarySmith 3 hours ago | discuss
    
      16. unalone accepts Pulitzer for blog (cnn.com)
          20 points by bootload 10 hours ago | 11 comments
    
      17. Ask HN: Review my app: NoMoreAds.com (nomoreads.com)
          17 points by fred 10 hours ago | discuss
    
      18. Poll: Favorite Language, Ruby 92.7 or C++++++++
          37 points by uafes 17 hours ago | 5 comments
    
      19. Feds Force Google to Divest its Apps Business (news.com)
          38 points by pete 17 hours ago | 5 comments
    
      20. Burrito Tunnel Between Calif & NYC Finally Completed (onion.com)
          50 points by jose 20 hours ago | 20 comments
      
      21. In 2020 Belize will become the world’s second-largest economy (economist.com)
          30 points by pg 16 hours ago | 23 comments
    
      22. Ask HN: What was Microsoft Office?
          63 points by yahfsh 23 hours ago | 6 comments
    
      23. Wikipedia Available on Gumwrapper (abc.com)
          3 points by lapenne 3 hours ago | discuss
    
      24. Boeing Dreamliner Delayed Until 2022 (airlinenews.com)
          4 points by mitchel 5 hours ago | discuss
    
      25. Ted Williams becomes 1st to win MVP with 2 different bodies (mlb.com)
          5 points by johnson 6 hours ago | 2 comments
    
      26. Ask HN: Review my app (virtualsex.com)
          125 points by ghpoa 1 day ago | 13 comments
    
      27. Science: Cigarettes Were Healthy After All (science.com)
          43 points by woodyallen 20 hours ago | 14 comments
    
      28. Broadband Finally Reaches Flint, Michigan (cbs.com)
          133 points by johnguest 1 day ago | 20 comments
    
      29. GO TO Added to Python, 27 Programmers Jump Out Windows (python.org)
          149 points by swert 1 day ago | 20 comments
    
      30. Wipe The Slate Clean For 2020, Commit Web 9.0 Suicide (techcrunch.com)
          2 points by nreece 2 hours ago | discuss
    
      More
    
      Lists | RSS | Bookmarklet | Guidelines | FAQ | News News
      Feature Requests | Y Combinator | Apply | Library
    

(Original link and discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025798>)

~~~
Couto
As a portuguese... Zuckerberg buying Portugal would be the best thing ever! =D

~~~
StavrosK
Too bad it's Mark Zuckerman, a little-known cheese manufacturer. After the
depression, Portugal was going for $3,000.

~~~
Couto
ahaha! my mistake =) still... as the country is going, even a little-known
cheese manufacter will be able to buy the country

~~~
StavrosK
Yep, we'll throw Greece in for an extra $800, looks like!

------
wyclif
Needs at least one submission titled: _How I Built a Standing Desk In Three
Easy Steps_

------
mhb
What about:

 _Fascinating Article I Submitted_ \- 1 month ago - 1 point

 _Month-Old Fascinating Article with '?' Appended to URL_ \- 15 minutes ago -
1,421 points

------
ANTSANTS
Amusingly accurate, but you forgot to include an article about the US Patent
system, and a few Marco/Daring Fireball/etc articles on the latest event or
rumor in Apple Land. Oh, and those Elon Musk and Tim Cook articles could use a
few more zeroes tacked to the end of their comment counts.

While we're at it, a parody of the average HN comment thread would have to
include:

    
    
      When will people get the message about grey text on light backgrounds?
    
      WHY DID THE MODS CHANGE THE TITLE IT WAS PERFECTLY DESCRIPTIVE BEFORE AND NOW
      IT ISN'T
        Separate comment thread discussing Stack Overflow's moderation.
    
      Helpful link to Wikipedia article explaining some concept explicitly mentioned
      in story or parent comment.
    
      Is this site down for anyone else?
        viewtext.org mirror
    
      Does not work in my browser.
    
      jbigglesworth48, I just wanted to let you know, you've been hellbanned.
    
      Ugh, Flash video/bootstrap/touch gestures?
    
      Steve Jobs
        Steve Jobs
          Steve Jobs
        Steve Jobs
          Tim Cook
            Steve Jobs
        Can we stop talking about Steve Jobs already? I mean, he did XYZ but he
        wasn't exactly Q.
          Steve Jobs
            How is this even relevant to the story?
              Steve Jobs
    
      I don't mean to be pedantic, but you made a spelling or grammatical error.
        Well, actually...
    
      This story is *Not HN Worthy*, any Freshman CS student should have learned
      this within seconds of stepping into his first lecture.
        Actually, there are a lot of non-programmer HN readers who are interested in
        this, you need to check your programmer/college educated/computer loving/
        first world/middle class/white/male/young/old privilege.
    
      Insightful and relevant comment containing a subtle joke.
        Please excuse me while I completely misunderstand this joke and write a
        fervent argument against something the author never argued.
          Please excuse me while I explain the joke in excruciating detail.
          I think the author meant X.
          It was a joke.
          I think the author was joking.
          I should know better, but I'm going to argue with you anyways.
            Guy who didn't get the joke here, I saw your comment before the ones
            explaining the joke, let's have a giant flamewar.
        I don't get this joke. Can someone explain?
          Another excruciatingly detailed explanation of the joke.
        Zero responses to the actual comment.
    
      This comment is *what's Wrong with HN*
    
      Recent Apple decision is bad, and I am saying this *as a guy who owns
      APPLE_PRODUCT*
    

EDIT: How could I forget:

    
    
      I didn't actually read the article, but I'm going to start arguing about what
      I *thought* the article was about, based on the title.
      
      EDIT: Why am I being downvoted?
      

and of course, my personal favorite:

    
    
      Ok, go ahead and downvote, me, assholes, see what I care!

~~~
jamesbritt
You omitted my fav hn cliche:

"This."

~~~
scoot
This.

~~~
firefoxman1
Agreed.

------
jere
I've noticed that all the communities I follow have a tendency toward self
hatred.

~~~
irollboozers
It's the more fun version of humility?

~~~
jere
It's definitely entertaining. I like to think it's a sign that dogma won't be
tolerated, but perhaps I'm being naive.

~~~
mbrock
It's the recognition that we humans are tedious creatures.

------
athesyn
I lost it at "Impressive thing in Pure CSS". Those are probably the most
redundant submissions.

------
mnemonicsloth
A parody that funny means it's time to leave.

I'll be back in 30,000 minutes to show off what I built instead of reading HN.
You're all invited to do the same.

Drop me a line on twitter if you need some moral support.

------
gojomo
Dinner _is_ overdue for disruption.

~~~
matthewowen
That was definitely my favourite :).

------
ryjm

      11. Twitter is down (2010) 
      67 points by retrothrowback 6 hours ago | flag | 140 short comments
    

Clever.

~~~
sgt
That one had me cracking up.

------
Swizec
This is exactly accurate. I would like this as a Chrome plugin.

------
manojlds
How come there is nothing about Python dying in there!

~~~
beering
I thought Ruby was dead. Or was that, "Java is dead"? Or maybe it was "C++ is
dead."

I also vaguely remember reading:

    
    
      * "JavaScript will never be dead"
      * "Dart arrived dead"
      * "PHP should be dead"
      * "Lisp is back from the dead"
      * "D stands for 'dead'"
      * "SELECT FROM NOSQL WHERE STATUS IS DEAD"
      * "COBOL still isn't dead"
      * "Haskell Maybe dead"

~~~
dredmorbius
Death is dead.

------
fhars
That caps lock thing does actually sound intriguing ... except that I already
use it as Super.

------
jiggy2011
I liked the "A Legitimately Interesting Technical Blog Post" being at the
bottom.

I've seen that happen a few times, seeing an promising sounding article that
might have some actual code and explanations in it on the front page. Then
refresh the page and it's gone replaced with "Scrutinisation and speculation
based on one sentence from an Apple press statement".

I suppose these articles will find it difficult to get to the top because they
are more niche. I know there are other more programming focused places like
proggit but they tend to focus more on "How I implemented SNES emulator in
pure Haskell" type articles than practical ones for business.

------
Groxx
"Linked List" is brilliant xD Excellent stuff!

Does anyone know if this:

    
    
      22. Things I Learned Writing an HN Parody
      4 points by nicholasjbs 6 minutes ago | flag | discuss
    

refer to the creator? Or did norswap make it?

~~~
Evbn
Nich confessed to helping write it.

------
ck2
I was disappointed a few of those didn't actually click to articles.

------
ytadesse
I'm actually in tears laughing right now. Lol.

Well done. Well done...

------
EzGraphs
I actually clicked #30 out of curiosity.

------
austenallred
The beautiful part of this is that this isn't just a spoof about "things that
tend pop up on the HN front page." I'm pretty sure they took the front page at
one point in time and turned it into satire post by post, perhaps injecting a
couple stereotypical links after the fact.

~~~
TeMPOraL
It looks like it was yesterday's front page.

------
edanm
Hilarious. For anyone that didn't notice the first time, look at the text of
the "YY comments", there's another mini joke there.

I have to echo edw519's sentiment, btw - Humor on HN is usually misplaced, but
this was just totally worth it!

------
jamesbritt
Nothing about headlines that include blatant, "editorialized", personal
opinions?

:)

------
eranation
<sarcasm prevent-downvote="true">I don't get the joke, what so funny in an
exact copy of hacker news in the past few months, only the links not
working</sarcasm>

------
tadhg
Excellent, and only made better by my reading it shortly after remapping my
Caps Lock key to be both Esc and Ctrl…

------
blacksmythe
Now we just need clickable links, and ability for readers to submit the
stories behind the headlines!

------
karl_gluck
ctrl+f app.net ...I am disappoint...

------
mcantor
I like the different adjectives for comments. Almost didn't notice that at
all.

------
antihero
Not nearly enough Steve Jobs.

------
Fando
Hahaha finally someone called it!

------
adgar2
My favorite:

> 30\. A Legitimately Interesting Technical Blog Post

> 3 points by happy4crazy 5 hours ago | flag | discuss

~~~
happy4crazy
That's my favorite too :)

~~~
anthonyb
It should really be marked 'unflag' though

