3 ms·

Why should people care about some 50 year old obscure cultural references? It is not 1980ies, when 99% unix users were from western culture.

flohofwoe 5y ago
Oh come on, ABBA was probably the most global phenomenon ever coming out of Europe. Everybody is an ABBA fan, even if they haven't discovered it yet ;)
- rblatz 5y ago
  I’m in my late 30s and have never understood the Abba obsession. I’ve heard some of their music and it doesn’t really do it for me. And the weird way everyone acts about Abba, like you see in this thread, just reinforces that for me.
  - blihp 5y ago
    It's probably at least partly a 'you had to be there' situation to remember how popular, globally, that band was back in the 70's. The fact that they weren't from the US or UK made them stand out even more.
nefitty 5y ago
I like seeing reflections of creators’ personalities in code. It’s a little reminder to not take myself so seriously, to remember that these artificial systems called computers were totally created by humans and finally, that creativity in code is one of the human essences imbued in these systems. I wonder if AI’s will create Easter eggs in their creations? Would they see them as a form of play, or only as a form of waste? What would that say about the eventual differences between a human and an artificial mind?
Symbiote 5y ago
I spent an hour trying to work out what was wrong with a system. Files had timestamps from 1985, and I couldn't see where they were coming from. NPM turned out to be the source, with (this time) an American cultural reference: https://github.com/npm/npm/issues/20439 https://github.com/npm/npm/issues/20439 I would much prefer 1 January 1970, 1 January 2000, or some other date that is clearly a placeholder.
account42 5y ago
Sharing between cultures is a positive thing. And you don't have to care, it's just an easter egg after all - but let others onjoy it.
tjpnz 5y ago
Because you might learn something new and learning is fun? FWIW I'm from a western country and didn't understand the reference.
- eru 5y ago
  Maybe. But I prefer to keep my fun separate from my production software.
  - Doctor_Fegg 5y ago
    You should demand a refund on your man SaaS subscription!
dubcanada 5y ago
Abba is European and extremely popular all over the world. It has nothing to do with "western culture".
- unwind 5y ago
  Ouch, right in the nationalistic ego centre! Swedish, please.
overboard2 5y ago
Presumably because the programmer likes that element of western culture. Are programmers supposed to conduct a poll among global stakeholders before they implement an easter egg?
- badsectoracula 5y ago
  This reminds me some review or article i read many years ago about OS/2 2.0 (the one before Warp) that wrote something along the lines of IBM tried to use a color palette that would be appropriate for all cultures around the world and ended up making a user interface with colors that looked very bland for everyone :-P

flohofwoe 5y ago

Oh come on, ABBA was probably the most global phenomenon ever coming out of Europe. Everybody is an ABBA fan, even if they haven't discovered it yet ;)

rblatz 5y ago
I’m in my late 30s and have never understood the Abba obsession. I’ve heard some of their music and it doesn’t really do it for me. And the weird way everyone acts about Abba, like you see in this thread, just reinforces that for me.
- blihp 5y ago
  It's probably at least partly a 'you had to be there' situation to remember how popular, globally, that band was back in the 70's. The fact that they weren't from the US or UK made them stand out even more.

nefitty 5y ago

I like seeing reflections of creators’ personalities in code. It’s a little reminder to not take myself so seriously, to remember that these artificial systems called computers were totally created by humans and finally, that creativity in code is one of the human essences imbued in these systems. I wonder if AI’s will create Easter eggs in their creations? Would they see them as a form of play, or only as a form of waste? What would that say about the eventual differences between a human and an artificial mind?

Symbiote 5y ago

I spent an hour trying to work out what was wrong with a system. Files had timestamps from 1985, and I couldn't see where they were coming from. NPM turned out to be the source, with (this time) an American cultural reference: https://github.com/npm/npm/issues/20439 https://github.com/npm/npm/issues/20439 I would much prefer 1 January 1970, 1 January 2000, or some other date that is clearly a placeholder.

account42 5y ago

Sharing between cultures is a positive thing. And you don't have to care, it's just an easter egg after all - but let others onjoy it.

tjpnz 5y ago

Because you might learn something new and learning is fun? FWIW I'm from a western country and didn't understand the reference.

eru 5y ago
Maybe. But I prefer to keep my fun separate from my production software.
- Doctor_Fegg 5y ago
  You should demand a refund on your man SaaS subscription!

dubcanada 5y ago

Abba is European and extremely popular all over the world. It has nothing to do with "western culture".

unwind 5y ago
Ouch, right in the nationalistic ego centre! Swedish, please.

overboard2 5y ago

Presumably because the programmer likes that element of western culture. Are programmers supposed to conduct a poll among global stakeholders before they implement an easter egg?

badsectoracula 5y ago
This reminds me some review or article i read many years ago about OS/2 2.0 (the one before Warp) that wrote something along the lines of IBM tried to use a color palette that would be appropriate for all cultures around the world and ended up making a user interface with colors that looked very bland for everyone :-P