I see that my citation of that joke was not to your taste. I appreciate the feedback. HN provides a solution for the long cascading joke thread. To the right o

I see that my citation of that joke was not to your taste. I appreciate the feedback. HN provides a solution for the long cascading joke thread. To the right of every comment is a [-] link which collapses the entire thread. Have you watched The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel? I recommend it. There are so many scenes where she or another comedian just bombs. That is part of the life of a comedian, and learning from when you bombed is how you get better at your craft. Regarding the off by one joke, personally I find it insightful and relevant to the life of a software engineer. Doesn't it get you thinking about all the ways an off by one error can sneak into your code? Consider your everyday ruler or tape measure. What is the first whole number you see on it? 1, of course. But the ruler doesn't actually start at 1. It starts at 0. Or consider a graphic system where you describe the coordinates of a rectangle. You may describe these as (left,top)-(right,bottom), or in other words (x1,y1)-(x2,y2). Now how do you describe a single pixel? Is it (0,0)-(0,0)? That kind of makes sense. Or should you use (0,0)-(1,1) for a single pixel, and (0,0)-(0,0) is an empty rectangle? These are not easy questions to answer. One of the best explanations I've seen was in Inside Macintosh, written by my friend Caroline Rose. Here is a discussion with Guido's and Caroline's thoughts on zeroes and ones: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6602497 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6602497 Let me leave you with an Amicus Curiae brief filed before the US Supreme Court: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-293/242596/20221006144840674_Novak%20Parma%20Onion%20Amicus%20Brief.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-293/242596/2022... [PDF] The brief begins: > The Onion is the world’s leading news publication, offering highly acclaimed, universally revered coverage of breaking national, international, and local news events. Rising from its humble beginnings as a print newspaper in 1756, The Onion now enjoys a daily readership of 4.3 trillion and has grown into the single most powerful and influential organization in human history.