5 ms·

Can be easily detected by licking the test hole to check if it tastes like coke / juice. Public officials can easily do this in order to bust the kids.

ethbr0 5y ago
> Can be easily detected by licking the test hole Can't tell if you're serious or not, about licking a positive-indicating lateral flow test with potentially hot nasal mucus...
- Aditya_Garg 5y ago
  He's definitely joking
- notduncansmith 5y ago
  I lost it at the quoted text, haven’t laughed this much in days. Classic HN sentence fragment of middlebrow dismissal with just enough obliviousness to social norms that it might be satire, but with such deadpan delivery you just don’t know. Pure gold.
  - 271828182846 5y ago
    It is obviously a joke ... and that's about as obvious as it gets.
    - ruined 5y ago
      Can't tell if you're serious or not. Decent humor is pretty easy to spot. If something is unclear it's probably not a good joke
      - ric2b 5y ago
        No, that's just the US style of humour, where even a laugh-track is recommended to make sure no one misses the joke.
        ethbr0 5y ago
        If someone had said it to me in real life, I would have laughed. On the internet? Well, those are the people who eat Tide Pods... Ironically, phrasing was a pure product of pre-coffee morning + living in a part of the US where anti-vax comments are a daily occurrence, but it delights me I was responsible for a few smiles. (Including my own, re-reading it) And truth be told, "hot" emerged from morning fugue, after rejecting infected, live, and potentially hazardous as less accurate. Sadly, "tainted" did not occur to me first.
        dang 5y ago
        Please let's not cross into nationalistic flamewar. Last thing we need here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        useragent86 5y ago
        Of course not. On HN, joking is a very serious matter.
        dang 5y ago
        Putting down other countries' "style of $X" just leads to nasty things.
        useragent86 5y ago
        I'm an American, and he's mostly right, and I'm not offended, because it wasn't nasty and wasn't about me--it was just a harmless, general observation. What is this world coming to if we can't even discuss regional styles of humor? Dan, may I suggest that you are taking this job too seriously. You are going to look back in the future and wonder why you spent so much time controlling others' speech on a Web site. You're so concerned about HN's value as a vessel, but so unconcerned with the value of what's inside it. You're a talented Lisper who seems to waste most of his time moderating, playing whack-a-troll and arguing with people about arguing (like me, here). You have more potential than you are fulfilling here, and you could be doing much more important things.
jorl17 5y ago
Thanks for the laugh!!
alxlaz 5y ago
Wondering if there's a way to monetize this technique.
gerdesj 5y ago
8) A slightly safer way is to wash them: "Is there then a way to spot a fake positive test? The antibodies (like most proteins) are capable of refolding and regaining their function when they are returned to more favourable conditions. So I tried washing a test that had been dripped with cola with buffer solution, and sure enough the immobilised antibodies at the T-line regained normal function and released the gold particles, revealing the true negative result on the test."

ethbr0 5y ago

> Can be easily detected by licking the test hole Can't tell if you're serious or not, about licking a positive-indicating lateral flow test with potentially hot nasal mucus...

Aditya_Garg 5y ago
He's definitely joking
notduncansmith 5y ago
I lost it at the quoted text, haven’t laughed this much in days. Classic HN sentence fragment of middlebrow dismissal with just enough obliviousness to social norms that it might be satire, but with such deadpan delivery you just don’t know. Pure gold.
- 271828182846 5y ago
  It is obviously a joke ... and that's about as obvious as it gets.
  - ruined 5y ago
    Can't tell if you're serious or not. Decent humor is pretty easy to spot. If something is unclear it's probably not a good joke
    - ric2b 5y ago
      No, that's just the US style of humour, where even a laugh-track is recommended to make sure no one misses the joke.
      - ethbr0 5y ago
        If someone had said it to me in real life, I would have laughed. On the internet? Well, those are the people who eat Tide Pods... Ironically, phrasing was a pure product of pre-coffee morning + living in a part of the US where anti-vax comments are a daily occurrence, but it delights me I was responsible for a few smiles. (Including my own, re-reading it) And truth be told, "hot" emerged from morning fugue, after rejecting infected, live, and potentially hazardous as less accurate. Sadly, "tainted" did not occur to me first.
      - dang 5y ago
        Please let's not cross into nationalistic flamewar. Last thing we need here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        useragent86 5y ago
        Of course not. On HN, joking is a very serious matter.
        dang 5y ago
        Putting down other countries' "style of $X" just leads to nasty things.
        useragent86 5y ago
        I'm an American, and he's mostly right, and I'm not offended, because it wasn't nasty and wasn't about me--it was just a harmless, general observation. What is this world coming to if we can't even discuss regional styles of humor? Dan, may I suggest that you are taking this job too seriously. You are going to look back in the future and wonder why you spent so much time controlling others' speech on a Web site. You're so concerned about HN's value as a vessel, but so unconcerned with the value of what's inside it. You're a talented Lisper who seems to waste most of his time moderating, playing whack-a-troll and arguing with people about arguing (like me, here). You have more potential than you are fulfilling here, and you could be doing much more important things.

jorl17 5y ago

Thanks for the laugh!!

alxlaz 5y ago

Wondering if there's a way to monetize this technique.

gerdesj 5y ago

8) A slightly safer way is to wash them: "Is there then a way to spot a fake positive test? The antibodies (like most proteins) are capable of refolding and regaining their function when they are returned to more favourable conditions. So I tried washing a test that had been dripped with cola with buffer solution, and sure enough the immobilised antibodies at the T-line regained normal function and released the gold particles, revealing the true negative result on the test."