3 ms·

For the curious: this is used for the black ribbon HN puts on when mourning the death of notable people/famous hackers [1]. I'm guessing the S stands for sad.

For the curious: this is used for the black ribbon HN puts on when mourning the death of notable people/famous hackers [1]. I'm guessing the S stands for sad. Here's an example: https://web.archive.org/web/20181016033726/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18224227 https://web.archive.org/web/20181016033726/https://news.ycom... (You need to close the Wayback Machine banner to see it better) [1]: I think more controversial people usually don't get one (e.g. McAfee). I guess that's the contrarian's curse.

tobr 5y ago
The ‘s’ probably stands for ‘space’. It’s a transparent gif used to add spacing to an old-school table layout.
- finite_jest 5y ago
  Thanks for pointing that out. You are right. It doesn't seem to have anything to do specifically with the black ribbon (contrary to the popular belief [1]). I checked the old HN source on Github, and it seems to be used in quite a few places [2]. It is also used on this very page [3]. [1]: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=s.gif https://hn.algolia.com/?q=s.gif [2]: https://github.com/wting/hackernews/search?q=hspace https://github.com/wting/hackernews/search?q=hspace [3]: I hope the Missouri governor won't prosecute me for clicking on view source, so much for the "Show Me" state :-)