
Ask HN: Does anyone else get strange looks from people who see you reading "Hacker News"? - falsestprophet
Maybe I will write a greasemonkey script to change the name to Erlang Innards
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swombat
The only time this site's name was really a problem for me was when I made the
mistake of mentioning my business in a google-meaningful way on here (e.g. "
_business-name_ is targeted at the construction industry"), and google picked
up my comment here as being higher rated than our website itself!

This was back in the days when we didn't have that much google-juice, and so
the result was that hapless architects would search for " _business-name_ "
and find that the first result was a site called "Hacker News" which said that
" _business-name_ is targeted at the construction industry".

Needless to say, that was not exactly the best impression to make.
Fortunately, pg was extremely gracious and altered the comment to remove the
name of my business when I asked him.

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kirubakaran
I used to care but now I've developed a healthy _fuck you_ attitude. It is all
about balance.

I once borrowed a stranger's (UW student) laptop in a cafe to quickly check HN
and he was nervous. He said "Hey man, I'll kick your ass if you hack my
computer". I was laughing too hard to think of a come back.

~~~
swombat
Little did you know, pg has a secret kung-fu ninja hacker script that uses a
cross-platform vulnerability in CSS rendering to run arbitrary code on the
machines of all visitors. You didn't hack that stranger's machine, but pg did!

This is all part of a vast, shadowy conspiracy to help YCombinator identify
the best start-ups to fund ahead of time by looking at their code and their
browsing habits.

~~~
kirubakaran
I used to think this of Google. You go about your life, coding, browsing,
emailing and what not and one fine day you get an email from Google saying
"You are hired". They have the means, motivation and opportunity and they
don't even have to "hack into" your computer.

~~~
sethg
To receive a brochure describing job opportunities at the NSA, just pick up
the phone and call your mother...

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pg
Always happy to oblige.

~~~
hellweaver666
Awesome... we should change it daily to stop people from finding out what we
really get up to on here... mwa ha ha! ;o)

~~~
rokhayakebe
That is the greatest idea I have come across today.

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pierrefar
I was once answering a question at a packed lecture and suggested to someone
that they should read a site called Hacker News. There were lots of giggles
and mumblings immediately as I said that.

Their loss really.

~~~
aptimpropriety
Whenever I tell my friends about HN, I always call it "YCombinator news".
Since that is what it was presented to me as from the outset (i.e., a url
(<http://news.ycombinator.com>) with a 'hacker'-free endorsement), the "Hacker
News" title has never really stuck. Even among people in the know, I still
usually refer to it as YCombinator news.

~~~
SwellJoe
I find I can't help but say, "news dot YC", and then if there are any puzzled
looks, I amend that with, "The Y Combinator news site". I've never been able
to think of it as Hacker News, either.

~~~
pierrefar
news.yc or YCombinator news just don't roll off the tongue as easily as Hacker
New or even Innocuous News :)

~~~
andreyf
news.yc works well for me - I wonder if YC will end up buying the .yc TLD at
some point? :)

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Luc
Yes, I get smirks and jabs from people who think I am trying to relive my
misspent youth. 'Hacker New?!!? Bwahaa! Greetings Dr. Falken, do you want to
play a game?'

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rsayers
Surprisingly no. In fact it's been a while since I've had to explain the real
meaning of the word hacker. In the past 10 years it seems that a lot of people
finally "get it".

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edw519
No. I have perfected a lightning-like alt-tab.

For longer threads, I cut and paste into my text editor. The keyword
highlighting looks kind of funky but no one who walks by can tell it's not
code.

~~~
Jem
There's a surprising amount of things this works for - I reply to emails, type
up blog entries (and comments), etc all inside an open document in my text
editor.

Of course, I could just work a little harder.

~~~
eru
With emacs you can do this natively.

~~~
thalur
What, working harder? :p

~~~
eru
I heard that's possible, too.

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lacker
They can't see I'm reading Hacker News because I use #000000 as my top-bar
color.

~~~
CGamesPlay
So that setting affects the browser window title bar as well?

~~~
jrockway
You use a window manager with title bars?

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jcl
I see we are now reading "Innocuous News", for the moment anyway. Thanks, PG,
that made my day.

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ivanstojic
All the time :-(

I used to think that ESR's constant reminders that hacking is not the same as
cracking were silly. Now I simply wonder at just how mystical and omnious the
world seems to some people.

P.S. I never explain that's it's "not that kind of hacking," it's the only
kind of hacking that I know of.

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Evgeny
Every time I go to HN from work I think to myself "is it blocked already ...
is it blocked already ... phew!".

The company has a reasonably strict policy on internet usage, stuff like
webmail is blocked, for example, but all development-related sites are not.
However, they blocked the blogger.com 'dashboard' recently ... without
blocking the site itself ... hmm ... so they might block HN one day, I won't
be able to prove that it's 'work-related'.

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sketerpot
Hit the down arrow on your keyboard, twice. Suddenly it just looks like a
pretty generic page of text. That's what I do.

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mkyc
It's good that the name deters. If the site is difficult to use, then only
committed users will remain. A socially inappropriate name does this without
killing usability.

~~~
vorador
This is a website, not a religion.

~~~
olefoo
Some would say it is a cult:

1\. charismatic leader

2, group indoctrination at a segregated living facility

3\. a common goal that is very rarely questioned publicly

But as cults go it's a fairly innocuous one, on a par with the chamber of
commerce or a particularly hard working fraternity. More like an Art School
really.

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niqolas
The admins at work blocked HN simply because it had the word "hacker" in its
name.

~~~
dagobart
Yeah, I know what you mean. Every time I get in a "serious business"
environment and fall for mentioning F/LOSS, I get the strange looks (and
obviously freak out the admin). Better not even to mention the word "hacker"
at all.

~~~
jrockway
Best to let the "serious businesses" kill themselves off by ignoring free
software and instead spending millions of dollars on inferior-quality products
and services.

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vyrotek
Yes, just yesterday I was in a meeting and someone noticed my HN rss feed on
my google homepage. Sadly, all they noticed and talked about was the fact that
a post had profanity in its title.

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amjith
I get strange looks all the time and I am beginning to like it. Makes me look
cool (just kidding).

But HN did get blacklisted and blocked for a little bit by our company proxy
which identified it as a hacking information website (which is an accurate
description, with a twisted meaning to the word hacker). I had to file a
complaint with our IT desk and fortunately one of the guys in the IT
department was smart enough to know the true meaning of hacker and unblocked
it for us :).

------
agotterer
Not so much over here. Half the guys in my department read it daily, or
throughout the day :)

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thorax
Interesting site name change! How harmless. I wonder how long that will last.

Now the site feels much safer when I browse my Firefox tabs. ;)

<http://pics.gd/INYC_screenshot.png>

 _Edit_ : FYI-- See pg's comment on this thread about the change (it's
temporary): <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=575815>

~~~
juliend2
Are you using TabKit plugin for Firefox (in your screenshot)? Mine is
different. Maybe cause im on a mac though.

~~~
thorax
I'm using this extension (which I love):

<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5890>

~~~
juliend2
Awesome. thanks

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luckystrike
Hacker News is bookmarked on my Firefox, and i did get a question (and a
smirk) about it during a demo. The word 'Hacker' has been blown out badly by
the media, and i don't know how long would it take before regular people start
looking at it positively.

------
zaidf
Most common reaction is "are you a hacker?" from classmates as I browse HN
during lectures.

~~~
derefr
My response to such a person: "If a bunch of 'real hackers' wanted to get
together and talk about doing illegal things, do you really think they'd call
the website _Hacker News_?" (Not bothering to mention that they'd probably be
meeting on IRC instead...)

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chanux
Mmm... Not many human beings really noticed me doing that. The few who did
just frowned as I can remember. Some bookmarked it.

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strider24
All the time. Me using terminals make it worse. They think I'm hacking which
maybe true, but, not in the way they think of it.

~~~
scott_s
What contexts does that come up in?

~~~
jrockway
Sexual fantasies.

------
hwijaya
I never get any strange look. Or...maybe because i just don't care about it.
For me, it's their loss. I always feel there are so many things can be learnt
from HN, especially if you want to stand in front of the tech-curve. Tried to
promote to a couple of friends, but, never see them jump into it.

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blang
I will often get shouts of "Nerd alert!"

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quellhorst
I had a girl joke about it before when seeing an icon for Hacker News on my
iphone. It was actually funny.

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derwiki
Kind of off topic, but Hacker News has changed my definition of 'hacker' -- I
almost never mean it in the malicious sense. Good point though, most people
probably do think of it in the Wargames or Kevin Mitnick sense (if anyone even
remembers him..)

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vaksel
I only read this site from home, partially to avoid this kind of situation.

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wlievens
Yep, including the hacking thing. To a colleague programmer, to shame.

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brokenrhino
The name does throw people off. They think I am doing something wrong.

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bitwize
Just tell them it's about little spirits from Scandinavian folklore.

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jasonlbaptiste
Never really thought about that to be honest. I just don't really give a shit.
I'm also moving to fast between reading things usually.

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quizbiz
I was once approached during school (I am a high school student). A quick
explanation was all that was needed.

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csomar
I'm safe, the people near me don't know what the word "hacker" mean!

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mat3
Yes, my wife just gave me a strange look!

