
See what Hacker News looked like on the day you joined - bemmu
http://bemmu.github.io/hncakeday/
======
tomkwok
View page source.

    
    
      <script>
      $(function () {
      	var 火 = new Firebase("https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/");
      	var ໆ = "http://news.ycombinator.com/";
      	$("#誤").hide();
      	$("form").submit(function () {
      		火.child("v0/user/" + $("#username").val()).on("value", function(結果) { 
      			var 人 = 結果.val();
      			if (人 && 人.created) {
      				var 時 = new Date(人.created * 1e3);
      				var YYYYMMDDhhmmss = 時.toISOString().slice(0,19).replace(/[-T:]/g,"");
      				var ꜛ = "https://web.archive.org/web/".concat(YYYYMMDDhhmmss, "/", ໆ);
      				$('body').fadeOut();
      				location = ꜛ;
      			} else {
      				$("#誤").show();
      			}
      		});
      		return false;
      	});
      });
    
      /* ASCII art omitted to save space */
      </script>
    
    

Wow, non-latin characters for variable names.

And if you'd like to learn some Chinese, here is the definition of all Chinese
characters appeared above.

    
    
        火 = fire
        誤 = error / mistake
        時 = time
        結果 = result (a term / expression with figurative meaning)
        果 = fruit
        人 = human / person
    

\---

My pick: 'HNSearch – old HN search engine – will be shut down later today'.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7404972](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7404972)

~~~
dilap
Native english speaker, math major.

This seems really awesome! I feel like descriptive, long variable names have
both an advantage and a disadvantage: advantage, obviously, that they're
clear, but disadvantage that simply having all that filler text everywhere
begins to make the code harder to follow in a serious way. So there's always
this tug-of-war between short variable names that make flow easy to follow but
require a lot of context or guessing to decipher and long variable names that
obscure flow.

Math (and languages like APL, K) are extreme examples of this: as an aid to
thinking really hard, they go to extremes of dense notation requiring lots of
context/previous to even begin to understand what's going on.

Using Chinese characters in normal code seems like it could fairly painlessly
(once you knew Chinese!) get you a lot of the advantages of small-space
characters while still encoding a lot more helpful context than a single latin
letter.

~~~
jimmaswell
I use long variable names all the time and it's never actually made the code
harder to follow. You generally parse a whole word as a shape rather than one
letter at a time anyway once you know the word, so effectively the only
difference is a bit more horizontal space. If someone grew up using whole
words as variables in math I doubt they'd find single characters easier to
work with.

For programming, using characters not available on a standard QWERTY keyboard
is bad international code shareability.

~~~
vorg
I doubt anyone can really parse
grails.plugin.searchable.internal.compass.mapping.SearchableGrailsDomainClassCompassClassMapperFactory
[1] as a shape.

[1]
[https://github.com/gpc/searchable/blob/master/src/java/grail...](https://github.com/gpc/searchable/blob/master/src/java/grails/plugin/searchable/internal/compass/mapping/SearchableGrailsDomainClassCompassClassMapperFactory.java)

~~~
thomasmarcelis
It does say a lot about what it is

------
jrockway
8 years! It was still called "Startup News" back then. The front page when I
joined looks very much like it does today -- a few articles about Google (6!),
some startup-y articles, some politics, some business-y articles, some pure
programming articles, etc. A good mix, but things are still pretty good today.

I remember exactly why I joined, incidentally. With increasing regularity,
/r/programming was making me very mad. I would post a detailed correct answer
to someone's question, only for some troll to immediately reply with some
insult and "proof" that I was totally wrong, even though the proof was totally
wrong. It happens once, fine. It happens every single time I comment, I'm out.
I have not been back in 8 years.

I will admit this happens from time to time on HN, which is unfortunate
because I like to comment and really only know what I'm talking about when
it's programming-related. But it hasn't made me mad enough to leave, only to
nostalgically think back to the good-old days.

(I did start using Reddit again, too, but I only read unpopular subreddits. I
can handle /r/AskReddit for some time killing, but things like /r/flying and
/r/amateurradio are very pleasant communities with enough activity to be
interesting a couple times a week. /r/anime is infuriatingly stupid,
/r/awwnime is much more tolerable.)

~~~
jzelinskie
What anime community do you use now? r/anime was always terrible. I've
"outgrown" 4chan, but /a/ is still the best community I know of. I mostly just
do my own thing and talk to my few friends who also watch.

~~~
jrockway
I use a (private) G+ community now.

------
542458
Ha! This is really cool. A few interesting things on mine:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20110716015547/http://news.ycomb...](https://web.archive.org/web/20110716015547/http://news.ycombinator.com/)

"Code.Google.com now supports git"

Google code got the axe earlier this year.

"Michael Arrington reportedly to launch “CrunchFund” to invest in startups"

The rumours turned out to be true.

"Court OKs Airport Body Scanners, Rejects Constitutional Challenge"

They're everywhere now!

"Italy and the euro: On the edge"

Good guess, but turns out Greece is a bigger problem.

~~~
CGamesPlay
I joined on April 1, apparently, so none of my rumors turned out to be true.
Oh well.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20090401065245/http://news.ycomb...](https://web.archive.org/web/20090401065245/http://news.ycombinator.com/)

------
japaget
It only approximates the date you first joined. It uses
[https://archive.org/](https://archive.org/) (the Internet Archive) to load
the archived page nearest to (or nearest before?) the date you joined. Since
the Internet Archive does not mirror HN every day, the page it will show you
may differ by a few days from your exact signup date. It so happens that I
joined on March 11, 2009 but I was shown the page for March 10, 2009 instead.
You can use [http://www.waybackhn.com/](http://www.waybackhn.com/) to get a
list of the top stories on the exact date you joined HN.

------
hga
I joined 8 years ago, and the topic selection is not markedly different in
nature, which I find remarkable. Then again, there's a reason I'm still here
and not e.g. Slashdot, which I started following even earlier.

~~~
ghaff
That's one of the things that struck me. Of the headlines that came up for me
for March 2010, there were only a couple that would seem out of place today.
(One related to Flash on an iPhone and one to the network at PyCon 2010.)

------
bootload
_" The reason I chose today to drop out was because of a conversation I had
with pg last week. He said bluntly that Octopart's chances of getting funding
were worse if I stayed in grad school."_

Classic. Top story the day I started, _" I Dropped Out of Grad School Today"_
@sam (octopart) [0],[1]

[0]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20070221033032/http://news.ycomb...](https://web.archive.org/web/20070221033032/http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=sam)

[1]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20070223035643/http://octopart.c...](https://web.archive.org/web/20070223035643/http://octopart.com/html/blog.html)

~~~
vlad
You started Feb 22, technically that's a different date. :)

The Archive.org page nearest my join date leads with the "Show HN" post for
Dropbox, though I actually joined a month earlier in March 2007.

Another top story from that day asks if people realized the up and down arrows
were clickable and used for voting purposes.

~~~
bootload
_" You started Feb 22, technically that's a different date. :)"_

correct @vlad, though the Archive.org capture isn't hi-rez enough, I'm only
reading what the app shows. Great idea.

------
Todd
Clever idea. Top item on mine:

My YC app: Dropbox - Throw away your USB drive (getdropbox.com)

[https://web.archive.org/web/20070405032412/http://news.ycomb...](https://web.archive.org/web/20070405032412/http://news.ycombinator.com/)

Edit: Look at the stats! 27 points kept it at the top after 8 hours. How
things have changed.

------
edw519
Doesn't work for me:

 _Sorry, your username was not found. Maybe you have never submitted or
commented anything._

    
    
      user: edw519 
      created: 3070 days ago 
      karma: 72254  
      about: Free ebook, "The Best of edw519": hn.my/edw519
      twitter: @edw519 http://twitter.com/edw519
                               e d w 5 1 9
                                   a t
                                g m a i l
    
      https://hn.algolia.com/?query=edw519&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment
      5,008 results

~~~
ics
Besides what DanBC suggested, it doesn't work (gives username not found error)
if you're blocking JS.

------
bambax
Apparently I joined the day PG and Jessica got married:

[https://twitter.com/kn0thing/statuses/824631187](https://twitter.com/kn0thing/statuses/824631187)

I wasn't at the wedding! ;-)

------
noenzyme
I think a cool derivative work would be to see today's HN but filtered to only
see activity of people who joined before you.

------
BCM43
Cool, top story for me was "Experiment: No Comment Scores"

[https://web.archive.org/web/20090929084547/http://news.ycomb...](https://web.archive.org/web/20090929084547/http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=844979)

~~~
mixmax
ah, I remember that - that's when I more or less stopped commenting. I still
think it was a really bad move.

~~~
x43b
"ah, I remember that - that's when I more or less stopped commenting. I still
think it was a really bad move."

Why would that cause you to stop posting?

------
cbaleanu
This is great! Reminds one of just how fast time flies. Melancholy aside,
this[0] was #1 on the day I finally created an account.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4220353](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4220353)

------
rossriley
Plus ça change.

This was top story for me.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=211630](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=211630)

------
thomasreggi
Awesome. One of the first posts was "Google Removes [http://](http://) from
Chrome". I remember that!

------
cwp
Wow. I knew it's been a long time, I didn't realize I joined so near the
beginning. Mine has "Why we made this site" submitted by pg.

~~~
staunch
Also the day I joined. I think it was the day PG posted it on reddit.

------
ismail
[https://web.archive.org/web/20080610175916/http://news.ycomb...](https://web.archive.org/web/20080610175916/http://news.ycombinator.com/)

Some interesting things on mine:

Does Apple's Steve Jobs have cancer again? (alleyinsider.com)

[https://web.archive.org/web/20080610175916/http://www.alleyi...](https://web.archive.org/web/20080610175916/http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/does_apple_s_steve_jobs_have_cancer_again_)

Toyota Announces New 516-Mile Range Fuel-Cell/Electric Hybrid

[https://web.archive.org/web/20080611123133/http://gas2.org/2...](https://web.archive.org/web/20080611123133/http://gas2.org/2008/06/10/toyota-
announces-new-516-mile-range-fuel-cellelectric-hybrid/)

Interesting to note how HN has grown since then. Much more people on, though
content has stayed similar.

In retrospect Jobs did still have cancer, and the Toyota hybrid was not much
of a game changer.

------
burger_moon
This is neat. Good job.

I'm a pretty big fan of one that got posted here about a month ago, waybackhn.
It chooses random day/months/years and shows the front page for either. I've
spent a lot of time reading through old stories and comments from years before
I got into this field. It's opened up my mind a bit to see what people were
talking about years back.

------
bsbechtel
Interesting! Meteor.js, which I've been using on my latest project, was
debuted the same day I joined :-)

------
joshstrange
Oddly enough on my first day the OP of this post (bemmu) first posted (I
assume) about his Candy Japan business
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2745694](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2745694)).
Funny how that works out.

------
Jimmy
One of the links from my page:

"MySpace v. Facebook: It's Not a Decision. It's an IQ Test"

Yeah, I joined a while ago.

------
larrykubin
Wow, I guess I showed up pretty early. I still remember going to Startup
School in 2007 and being so excited and inspired that I quit my job a few
months later.

Note: I probably should have stopped following startup news after the first
year or so, I don't think anything I've read after that has been that
beneficial, it's just an addiction at this point. I went to Startup School for
a second time in 2008 and realized that I didn't need to be there, I was
trying to recapture a feeling -- but after the initial inspiration I just
needed to get busy.

Why we made this site

34 points by pg 5 hours ago | 7 comments

Odeo up for sale (so they could focus on this Twitter thing)

17 points by beau 11 hours ago | discuss

Web 2.0 is a bubble for 3 reasons

12 points by xyzzy 16 hours ago | discuss

Startup School 2007: 3/24 at Stanford

26 points by phyllis 1 day ago | discuss

~~~
aquarin
Why we made this site 117 points by pg 5 days ago | 46 comments Startup School
2007: 3/24 at Stanford 32 points by phyllis 6 days ago | discuss

------
jedberg
I'm amused that a top post when I joined was "How long did it take you to
figure out that the up/down arrows next to the links are for voting?"

FYI this was 8.3 years ago, which was about 200 days in, but very close to the
public launch I think.

------
lcfg
These throwbacks have a way of being very topical. 12th item on Hacker News
that day for me is "The Next SourceForge": "SourceForge has been rethought,
reimplemented, and rejuvenated."

------
scelerat
Four front page stories about why the lucky stiff's abrupt reclusion.

------
cellis
Startup News new | comments | jobs | leaders | submit login

1.

Your bank has a REST API now (wesabe.com) 14 points by dawie 5 hours ago | 3
comments

2.

Facebook: $6 Billion? Nah. [John Battelle] (battellemedia.com) 10 points by
aston 4 hours ago | 5 comments

------
msutherl
Turns out this enduringly useful text was on the front page when I joined:
[http://www.unixwiz.net/techtips/be-
consultant.html](http://www.unixwiz.net/techtips/be-consultant.html)

Bonus, also interesting: [http://www.forbes.com/special-
report/2011/migration.html](http://www.forbes.com/special-
report/2011/migration.html)

------
Semiapies
I just get "Unknown" with this name. Are they mis-formatting the request or
something?

[https://web.archive.org/web/20090314171151/http://news.ycomb...](https://web.archive.org/web/20090314171151/http://news.ycombinator.com//)

ETA: Nevermind, archive.org just has a bad snapshot or something for that day.

------
minikomi
Nice one. Seems the day I joined was just 4 days after the big Tohoku
Earthquake. Things were quite strange in Tokyo those days..

------
rglullis
First link of mine seemed interesting at the time, but I guess it was one of
those YC duds:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20070405032412/http://news.ycomb...](https://web.archive.org/web/20070405032412/http://news.ycombinator.com/)

------
ryanmarsh
11\. What Every C Programmer Should Know About Undefined Behavior #2/3
(llvm.org)

LOL, some things change, some things stay the same

------
peteretep
Bitcoin hit $4!

------
driverdan
Story with most votes for me was about terrible Google customer service in
2009. Some good discussion that's relevant today.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=790800](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=790800)

------
janoelze
December 1, 2011. The frontpage was filled with the Carrier IQ thing
unfolding.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier_IQ#Rootkit_discovery_a...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier_IQ#Rootkit_discovery_and_media_attention)

------
blhack
Wow..."AWS Startup challenge!"

[https://web.archive.org/web/20081222024222/http://aws.amazon...](https://web.archive.org/web/20081222024222/http://aws.amazon.com/startupchallenge)

------
Brajeshwar
Nice. But you need to sanitize the username case-sensitivity.

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/16u7pjmpno685u0/Screenshot%202015-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/16u7pjmpno685u0/Screenshot%202015-07-19%2014.20.01.png)

------
djyde
See what Github looked like on the day you joined
[http://djyde.github.io/github-cakeday](http://djyde.github.io/github-cakeday)

------
PakG1
Funny how the day that I joined so many years ago, people were debating
whether or not Google would buy Twitter, and today that debate has been
resurrected again so recently.

------
waterlesscloud
"Tesla Says It Is Now Profitable, Ships 109 Roadsters In July"

Heh.

------
slamus
Show HN: thefacebook.com

Just joking :)

------
agotterer
What a day. Highlights:

\- what happened to pownce

\- Amazon Dynamo white paper announced

\- justin tv got funded

\- Microsoft to open source .net framework

Thanks for making this. It appears the search is case sensitive, might be
worth fixing.

------
DiThi
Neat, exactly the same :P

It's wrong by one day. The page with my first comment didn't exist until the
next day and I registered to write that comment.

~~~
kevinbowman
Timezone issue perhaps?

------
rozuur
So I haven't commented or submitted anything

------
epmatsw
Huh, I joined the day MegaUpload went down. I don't remember, but I expect
that those are probably related.

------
joeblau
A lot of SOPA stuff was going on which explains why I made the Stop SOPA
awareness banner browser plugins!

------
txutxu
The day I did join I was stupid and did use my memory for the password.

Latter I did create another account, yes.

------
corford
Apparently I joined (after lurking for ages!) on or close to the day Steve
Jobs passed away.

------
HeyLaughingBoy
Thanks for this!

The quality of the front page was either much better back then or that was
just a lucky day!

------
captn3m0
I joined the day Stripe launched. I was a lurker for a long time, though.

------
jozan
This is cool and simple. :)

------
endlessvoid94
Obligatory "I joined on the first day" comment, w00t

------
BenoitEssiambre
"browser stats: IE8 passes IE7 (arstechnica.com)"

 _shudders_

------
ashwath
This is very nice!

------
jumperabg
I haven't commented on anything :( :D

------
bluehazed
_" Google reader is dead"_

~~~
dylanz
On my front page was: "Is Google Reader next on the chopping block?". Also,
JQuery 1.3 was released.

------
noobermin
Does anyone else get a 404?

------
JimmaDaRustla
NEIL ARMSTRONG DIED!?

