'If the comment desaturation makes Hacker News difficult to read, you can click on the comment's timestamp to go to its page where the comment will no longer be

'If the comment desaturation makes Hacker News difficult to read, you can click on the comment's timestamp to go to its page where the comment will no longer be faded, or you can install the CSS extension discussed here.' Actually, it is also possible to just select the text. This will make it readable again, at least in my firefox.