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Show HN: Ancap News, a Chrome/FF extension to bring out HN's true colors

16 points by cemerick 9y ago

rf15 9y ago
You should make the Y logo black and yellow too.
- cemerick 9y ago
  The logo's an image; messing with it exceeded the threshold of work I wanted to put into it. :-) I'm actually not sure how the logo could be made yellow and black without distracting from the signature stark yellow/black diagonal to the right...
  - bauerd 9y ago
    filter: hue-rotate(30deg) brightness(2);
    - cemerick 9y ago
      Well, yes, though then the logo basically disappears.
      - KirinDave 9y ago
        Into the beauty that is the ancap color scheme. It's poetic isn't it?
  - rf15 9y ago
    based on the previous css, how about using invert? (invert + 180deg + the previous 30deg) invert(100%) hue-rotate(210deg) brightness(2)
friedman23 9y ago
This is so stupid, are you just blind to the threads that get upvoted where the top comment is always someone calling for some industry to be nationalized or some form of trust busting to take place? Nevermind the massive amounts of communism and socialism apologism, the massive amounts of people that believe the government should institute massive welfare programs for the "impending" robopocalypse, and the tons of threads about how amazing the Seattle $15 minimum wage is. All of this definitely sounds like anarcho capitalism to me. edit: also I'm not an ancap and Milton Friedman is not an ancap before you comment on my username.
Danihan 9y ago
>The general zeitgeist of Y Combinator's Hacker News forum site (at least to many of its detractors) is one of nonspecific libertarian laissez-faire capitalism Hardly, not anytime recently anyway. Dang will straight up ban you for being ancap on here.
- mindcrime 9y ago
  Dang will straight up ban you for being ancap on here. I'm an ancap and I haven't been banned, so I'm not sure about that. But I certainly don't find the prevailing zeitgeist here to be particularly libertarian as of late.
- KirinDave 9y ago
  Nonsense. Dan will do a lot of things, but he almost never straight up bans people who participate in good faith.
  - Danihan 9y ago
    Keep telling yourself that. I didn't even have to go back 24 hours to find an example.. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14755236 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14755236 He simply calls anything politically right-of-center an "ideological flamewar" and removes / bans as he sees fit. Another easy example. He's so hypersensitive to any perceived "nationalism" he sees it everywhere. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14535633 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14535633
    - kazinator 9y ago
      The user in question created a throwaway account to make the posting. That can only be because that person anticipated a flame war, and therefore armed against it with a "heat shield" that would absorb the downvotes. Possibly, their main account has enough points to downvote others, so they can use the throaway account to bait replies and then downvote the replies using their regular account (something you can't do to your own replies). Sock-puppet accounts should be identified and banned; and threatening repeat offenders with a main ban is part of the game.
mindcrime 9y ago
The general zeitgeist of Y Combinator's Hacker News forum site (at least to many of its detractors) is one of nonspecific libertarian laissez-faire capitalism, Meh. That doesn't jibe with my experience at all. I'd say the general zeitgeist here is the exact opposite of libertarian laissez-faire capitalism. It strikes me as closer to "European style social democracy mixed with American progressivism and general scorn towards any notion of individual merit". Maybe 10 years ago there was a libertarian zeitgeist here, but I sure haven't seen it for quite a long time. Or maybe I'm just clicking through on the wrong stories.
- cemerick 9y ago
  The veneration of the "startup" mentality and lifestyle above all else, threads regularly masturbating over things like seasteading projects, regularly excusing corporate malfeasance via appeals to private property ("it's their website, they can do what they want") or freedom of association ("if the ladies don't like the working environment, they should find different jobs"), valorizing companies for bending or breaking laws and regulations in service of private profit… Nope, everything is fine. HN and the broader community it fits in and sustains is a bastion of progressive liberalism.
adrianN 9y ago
Why do you need an extension for this? Couldn't you achieve the same with a user style sheet?
- cemerick 9y ago
  Maybe someone cleverer than I could? HN's markup is not amenable to achieving the desired effect AFAICT.
- KirinDave 9y ago
  Extensions are easier to package and distribute for most users.
LyndsySimon 9y ago
As an ancap... yeah, no. HN is far from it.
dabber 9y ago
Not sure if it's because I've recently accumulated enough karma but I have a "topcolor" field in my settings page where I can pop in a hex code and change the banner color. Mine has been #C0ffee ever since that "hex codes that make words" articles was on the front page here. So an extension seems like overkill. But I get it's about the statement so, whatever floats your boat I guess.
- cemerick 9y ago
  It all started with people on twitter referring to HN as "the orange website", usually along with a screenshot of a particularly abhorrent yet not uncommon comment. Thus the "true colors" pun. But you're right that it's fundamentally about having an artifact. Many people are mad about "startup culture" and how it's affected the places we work and the things we love to do, and HN is a big part of how that culture is reproduced. That very real-world effect IMO makes "exit" insufficient; just black-holing the domain or whatever solves nothing.
carsongross 9y ago
The average politically-flavored HN comment (not to say user, who can say?) is not ancap. It is not even libertarian. It is liberal/globalist consensus: extremely liberal on social issues, globalist on economics.
- owebmaster 9y ago
  There is a good chunk of communists/progressists too, /me included (and I don't feel alone here). I'd credit it to the free software movement.
- KirinDave 9y ago
  Okay but to be fair there was an article yesterday about taking the blood of the young to revitalize the old that looked pretty amazing in a yellow/black color scheme.
petraeus 9y ago
In your blind attempt to stereo-type the HN community, you've missed the obvious answer, there are many many sub-groups ranging from anarchists to full on communists.

16 points by cemerick 9y ago

rf15 9y ago

You should make the Y logo black and yellow too.

cemerick 9y ago
The logo's an image; messing with it exceeded the threshold of work I wanted to put into it. :-) I'm actually not sure how the logo could be made yellow and black without distracting from the signature stark yellow/black diagonal to the right...
- bauerd 9y ago
  filter: hue-rotate(30deg) brightness(2);
  - cemerick 9y ago
    Well, yes, though then the logo basically disappears.
    - KirinDave 9y ago
      Into the beauty that is the ancap color scheme. It's poetic isn't it?
- rf15 9y ago
  based on the previous css, how about using invert? (invert + 180deg + the previous 30deg) invert(100%) hue-rotate(210deg) brightness(2)

friedman23 9y ago

This is so stupid, are you just blind to the threads that get upvoted where the top comment is always someone calling for some industry to be nationalized or some form of trust busting to take place? Nevermind the massive amounts of communism and socialism apologism, the massive amounts of people that believe the government should institute massive welfare programs for the "impending" robopocalypse, and the tons of threads about how amazing the Seattle $15 minimum wage is. All of this definitely sounds like anarcho capitalism to me. edit: also I'm not an ancap and Milton Friedman is not an ancap before you comment on my username.

Danihan 9y ago

>The general zeitgeist of Y Combinator's Hacker News forum site (at least to many of its detractors) is one of nonspecific libertarian laissez-faire capitalism Hardly, not anytime recently anyway. Dang will straight up ban you for being ancap on here.

mindcrime 9y ago
Dang will straight up ban you for being ancap on here. I'm an ancap and I haven't been banned, so I'm not sure about that. But I certainly don't find the prevailing zeitgeist here to be particularly libertarian as of late.
KirinDave 9y ago
Nonsense. Dan will do a lot of things, but he almost never straight up bans people who participate in good faith.
- Danihan 9y ago
  Keep telling yourself that. I didn't even have to go back 24 hours to find an example.. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14755236 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14755236 He simply calls anything politically right-of-center an "ideological flamewar" and removes / bans as he sees fit. Another easy example. He's so hypersensitive to any perceived "nationalism" he sees it everywhere. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14535633 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14535633
  - kazinator 9y ago
    The user in question created a throwaway account to make the posting. That can only be because that person anticipated a flame war, and therefore armed against it with a "heat shield" that would absorb the downvotes. Possibly, their main account has enough points to downvote others, so they can use the throaway account to bait replies and then downvote the replies using their regular account (something you can't do to your own replies). Sock-puppet accounts should be identified and banned; and threatening repeat offenders with a main ban is part of the game.

mindcrime 9y ago

The general zeitgeist of Y Combinator's Hacker News forum site (at least to many of its detractors) is one of nonspecific libertarian laissez-faire capitalism, Meh. That doesn't jibe with my experience at all. I'd say the general zeitgeist here is the exact opposite of libertarian laissez-faire capitalism. It strikes me as closer to "European style social democracy mixed with American progressivism and general scorn towards any notion of individual merit". Maybe 10 years ago there was a libertarian zeitgeist here, but I sure haven't seen it for quite a long time. Or maybe I'm just clicking through on the wrong stories.

cemerick 9y ago
The veneration of the "startup" mentality and lifestyle above all else, threads regularly masturbating over things like seasteading projects, regularly excusing corporate malfeasance via appeals to private property ("it's their website, they can do what they want") or freedom of association ("if the ladies don't like the working environment, they should find different jobs"), valorizing companies for bending or breaking laws and regulations in service of private profit… Nope, everything is fine. HN and the broader community it fits in and sustains is a bastion of progressive liberalism.

adrianN 9y ago

Why do you need an extension for this? Couldn't you achieve the same with a user style sheet?

cemerick 9y ago
Maybe someone cleverer than I could? HN's markup is not amenable to achieving the desired effect AFAICT.
KirinDave 9y ago
Extensions are easier to package and distribute for most users.

LyndsySimon 9y ago

As an ancap... yeah, no. HN is far from it.

dabber 9y ago

Not sure if it's because I've recently accumulated enough karma but I have a "topcolor" field in my settings page where I can pop in a hex code and change the banner color. Mine has been #C0ffee ever since that "hex codes that make words" articles was on the front page here. So an extension seems like overkill. But I get it's about the statement so, whatever floats your boat I guess.

cemerick 9y ago
It all started with people on twitter referring to HN as "the orange website", usually along with a screenshot of a particularly abhorrent yet not uncommon comment. Thus the "true colors" pun. But you're right that it's fundamentally about having an artifact. Many people are mad about "startup culture" and how it's affected the places we work and the things we love to do, and HN is a big part of how that culture is reproduced. That very real-world effect IMO makes "exit" insufficient; just black-holing the domain or whatever solves nothing.

carsongross 9y ago

The average politically-flavored HN comment (not to say user, who can say?) is not ancap. It is not even libertarian. It is liberal/globalist consensus: extremely liberal on social issues, globalist on economics.

owebmaster 9y ago
There is a good chunk of communists/progressists too, /me included (and I don't feel alone here). I'd credit it to the free software movement.
KirinDave 9y ago
Okay but to be fair there was an article yesterday about taking the blood of the young to revitalize the old that looked pretty amazing in a yellow/black color scheme.

petraeus 9y ago

In your blind attempt to stereo-type the HN community, you've missed the obvious answer, there are many many sub-groups ranging from anarchists to full on communists.