
Why Hyperlinks Are Blue (and Other Quirky Web Origin Stories) - prostoalex
https://www.crazyegg.com/blog/why-hyperlinks-are-blue/
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rekshaw
This article is also a wonderfully accurate synecdoche of real life: there is
no grand plan. There is no "right" way, even if society really tries to push
it on us. What hit me the most when maturing into an adult is the tiny echo
chambers that are created inside social circles: family, friends, colleagues,
communities each draw very strong, thick lines around what is deemed possible,
good, right. The biggest, and scariest, wake up call is that everyone is
right, and everyone is wrong.

~~~
ptr_void
"everyone is right, and everyone is wrong" \-- I know you didn't mean it
literally as contradiction but probably expressing moral relativism - which
could be a very difficult claim to support.

There certainly are objective 'right way' and grand plans of actions. As for
the plans of action, they are almost never economical thus ignored.

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gumby
_The_ ARPANET. And even after ARPA became DARPA, it was still the ARPANET (or
the net), except as a lame joke when the name changed.

And for the rest of the world: it's " _the_ Internet (though it uses internet
protocols). Like the Universe there is by definition one (though you can have
little local internets).

Oh, and about my lawn: stay off!

------
stretchwithme
"Red and green are the colors most affected by color-vision deficiency."

So maybe not the best choice for traffic lights. How did that happen?

~~~
draz
It's probably a reason to continue maintaining a distinct position for each
color in the traffic light.

~~~
iamatworknow
There's one stretch of road in southern Quebec that has horizontal traffic
lights that always throw me for a loop, despite not being colorblind. They
flash in odd (to me) patterns and have two red lights:
[http://i.imgur.com/i7jCi.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/i7jCi.jpg)

~~~
tjohns
Two red lights... which are also square (other lights are still round). It's
actually a pretty good design.

~~~
iamatworknow
I'm good with the layout, but if I remember correctly the turn arrows flash in
the middle while the outer red lights are still lit. So if I've got the green
light to turn left, it's flashing in between two red lights, which I think is
what made me kind of wary.

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aetherson
> It affects 7% of men and only 0.4% of women, but that’s still one person in
> 13 overall.

No it's not.

Also: the percentage of men who can't tell highly-saturated red from highly-
saturated green is way lower than 7%.

~~~
RBCopywriting
'It affects 7% of men and only 0.4% of women, but that’s still one person in
13 overall.

No it's not.'

It's not. It's more like one in 25. Thanks for catching that!

------
msielski
"More than any single person, Tim Berners-Lee is responsible for inventing the
internet." Learn something every day.

~~~
frik
"and it is the reason other parts of the web are blue – like Facebook, which
is blue because Mark Zuckerberg is red-green colorblind." didn't know that.

In its early years there was a quite popular Facebook 1:1 clone with the only
difference being a red-color theme instead of blue. At one point FB even tried
to buy it.

