5 ms·

I mean, GD has been around for over 20 years. It's not obscure. It's extremely popular. Most coders have used it at some point. I could whip upa similar grap

I mean, GD has been around for over 20 years. It's not obscure. It's extremely popular. Most coders have used it at some point. I could whip upa similar graph without breaking a sweat that says whatever I'd like, and it would have all the same hallmarks of this one. I could even do it in PHP using ImageMagick (if I felt masochistic) and fake the file header to say it was created using GD. Or build it in photoshop, and pull it into a binary editor. So I think unless there's someone who can point to greater evidence that this is an internal graph, there's just no reason to believe it is.

yorwba 9y ago
> So I think unless there's someone who can point to greater evidence that this is an internal graph, there's just no reason to believe it is. So I think unless there's someone who can point to the actual internal graph, there's just no reason to believe this is fake. The distribution this poll shows is not so outlandish as to be unbelievable, and importantly it does not lend itself to overwhelmingly support one side over the other. Why would anyone spend time and effort to fake it?
- michaelchisari 9y ago
  > Why would anyone spend time and effort to fake it? It's a heated argument on the internet. There'd be plenty of incentive to fake a graph in order to bolster one's opinion.
  - yorwba 9y ago
    My point is that if you are going to fake a graph to bolster your opinion, you might as well fake one that actually bolsters your opinion, instead of just mildly suggesting that not everyone disagrees with you.
    - michaelchisari 9y ago
      I'm really disappointed we're even having this conversation on Hacker News. A graph with no source, no methodology, no context is useless. We're computer programmers, we should know enough about data to recognize this and dismiss it until we have those things.

5 ms·

I mean, GD has been around for over 20 years. It's not obscure. It's extremely popular. Most coders have used it at some point. I could whip upa similar grap

by michaelchisari 9y ago

yorwba 9y ago
> So I think unless there's someone who can point to greater evidence that this is an internal graph, there's just no reason to believe it is. So I think unless there's someone who can point to the actual internal graph, there's just no reason to believe this is fake. The distribution this poll shows is not so outlandish as to be unbelievable, and importantly it does not lend itself to overwhelmingly support one side over the other. Why would anyone spend time and effort to fake it?
- michaelchisari 9y ago
  > Why would anyone spend time and effort to fake it? It's a heated argument on the internet. There'd be plenty of incentive to fake a graph in order to bolster one's opinion.
  - yorwba 9y ago
    My point is that if you are going to fake a graph to bolster your opinion, you might as well fake one that actually bolsters your opinion, instead of just mildly suggesting that not everyone disagrees with you.
    - michaelchisari 9y ago
      I'm really disappointed we're even having this conversation on Hacker News. A graph with no source, no methodology, no context is useless. We're computer programmers, we should know enough about data to recognize this and dismiss it until we have those things.