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Ask HN: What are some iconic comments on HN?
Over the years, I've seen some iconic comments on HN. Inspired by this, I want to create a website showcasing the most memorable discussions and comments on this website.
What are some of your favorite comments on HN?
- h2odragon 2y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/favorites?id=h2odragon&comments=t https://news.ycombinator.com/favorites?id=h2odragon&comments...
- Carrok 2y agoDropbox comment. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
- sidcool 2y agoThis will always be the best example of HN.
- pavlov 2y agoYes, in the sense that it’s someone providing useful and concise feedback on a YC application, which is what the original poster (the Dropbox founder) explicitly asked for.
- paulddraper 2y agoWhat part of the feedback was most useful to Dropbox? * That it didn't solve a problem for Linux users? * That it ultimately relies on some internet connectivity? * That it is not very "'viral' or income generating"?
- pavlov 2y agoUseful feedback doesn’t mean saying something that will seem insightful 15 years later. Setting the bar so incredibly high just means you’re going to lose out on the majority of feedback, and that’s a net loss for a fledgling project. The benefit of early and unstructured feedback (like what you can get from a Show HN) is that it prepares the recipient to answer those questions down the road again. That’s why the Dropbox comment qualifies as useful. “Is this viral” sounds silly now, but in 2007 it was a question that the founder undoubtedly faced again and again.
- mdgrech23 2y agoI remember reading this comment at that point. I totally agreed w/ the author, at least on point number one. A lot of us here where already paying for web hosting and using FTP clients to upload our files and like mentioned Linux, which had the time meant Ubuntu for most of us had it so nicely integrated into the file system. In someways we/Ubuntu were just ahead of the OneDrive. Honestly the only difference between OneDrive and the aforementioned setup at the time was it required you put in a host, username and password to set it up.
- paulddraper 2y ago> at least on point number one Point number one is > I have a few qualms with this app: 1. For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself Thus objecting to this Dropbox idea on the basis that it was redundant to 2% of desktop users.
- talldayo 2y agoFor enterprise customers, this is an entirely fair objection. You could do this, and many places do. The companies I've worked for use NAS a lot more than they use Dropbox, I can tell you that much for sure in 2024.
- paulddraper 2y agoLol, HN cannot ever accept the L.
- talldayo 2y agoNor disrupt B2B storage, apparently.
- isbvhodnvemrwvn 2y agoHow about all the Dropbox competitors/clones such as OneDrive?
- 2y ago
- JimDabell 2y agoIt’s worth reading dang’s comment on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27068148 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27068148
- bigfatfrock 2y agoFor all the times I've seen the quote reposted, I have never seen this context added - it should be perma-pinned as the first reply to OP! Thanks for the historical color.
- qingcharles 2y agoWow, like my sibling poster, I've never seen this and it adds so much context completely changing my perspective of the original comment.
- paulddraper 2y agoThis explanation doesn't add any context. > When BrandonM wrote "I have a few qualms with this app", he didn't mean the software. He meant their YC application. Of course. Criticism #3 (arguably the funniest one) was about monetization: "It does not seem very 'viral' or income-generating." -my sides- > The criticisms he was raising turned out not to be problems in hindsight, but were on point in 2007 They weren't really on point then, were they? --- This comment isn't an example of "ha ha, low IQ" it's an example of "ha ha, humans can be hilariously bad at recognizing opportunities."
- Teever 2y agoYeah I agree, dang's comment doesn't really address any of the issues that I or other people have with the original comment that we're talking about. Dunno why dang felt hte need to write that comment. No one felt the need to write the same kind of comment from Commander Taco regarding the iPod.
- paulcole 2y ago> Dunno why dang felt hte need to write that comment. Who writes the checks that keep the HN lights on?
- paulddraper 2y agoThis is the canonical HN comment.
- flessner 2y agoI always forget how young I am, just for HN to remind me :)
- ldjkfkdsjnv 2y agoI still see this comment referenced once a month or so on random parts of the internet (twitter, reddit)
- fotta 2y agoDid you win the Putnam? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- wjnc 2y agoA fun thing in that broader thread is that cperciva is actually interacting with a Dropbox founder and both pulled of their vision via wildly different trajectories. Having a vision and sticking to it long term. ‘07 was a good time to be wrong on this forum.
- mardifoufs 2y agoAlmost everyone in that thread is either a founder or an early employee of some well known unicorns! I wish I was around here (and not a 9 year old) back in 2007 :).
- sanj 2y agoI love that this continues to top the list.
- crop_rotation 2y agoIs it just me or that comment seems planted to get that response? I don't get why is there a random reference to Ravi Vakil who has nothing to do with the context of that conversation. And if you want to cite for academic accomplishment, you can cite someone known much more widely. I find it much less iconic due to that.
- no-dr-onboard 2y agothe guy who pulled 1.3m from multiple remote jobs and lived to tell the story: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31156417 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31156417
- _yb2s 2y agoHis subsequent replies are hilarious. I sometimes feel like I am doing this but with one job, and not on purpose… just because I’m a single dad of a young kid. It’s often just not possible to work more than 1/4 to 1/2 of the workday and keep him safe. Public school is only about 9-2pm. I don’t know how most people manage to have both kids and a job.
- burningChrome 2y agoHad a friend who did something similar in the early aughts before remote work was a thing in order to buy a townhome outright without any mortgage. He had a day job as a developer until 3:30pm. He would then come home, shower, eat dinner and then head off to a night data entry job for another company until around midnight or so. His main job was salaried, his data entry job was hourly with bonuses for how much he could get done. It took him about 18 months to hit his goal, while still paying all his bills and rent. The one thing he said was it took a huge toll on his health/mental wellbeing and said he spent another year getting back into shape and getting healthy again. The other interesting thing was he said he got a lot of perspective about why people chase money and how it can be really unhealthy.
- Arrath 2y agoWow what a legend.
- throwup238 2y agoThe interface isn't the best for finding older comments but there's the HN highlights list: https://news.ycombinator.com/highlights https://news.ycombinator.com/highlights
- BoxOfRain 2y agohttps://hn.algolia.com/ https://hn.algolia.com/ is quite good for finding things on HN.
- photochemsyn 2y agoCuriously, you can search stories by popularity but not comments.
- AnimalMuppet 2y agoI can search my comments by popularity, but I only get comments from 8 years ago and this year. I think that HN doesn't let it get the karma of comments from the intervening period. (If not, then it's an algolia bug.)
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y agoUnfortunately, what I really want is to find any story about my search term that has comments, but I've never found a way to do that. (Usecase: "Hm, should I install Foo or Bar? Let's see if anyone on HN has used either and written about it...")
- gnabgib 2y agoIf you click on lists at the bottom of the page[0], there are two relevant entries: * highlights: Particularly interesting comments (manually curated via request) https://news.ycombinator.com/highlights https://news.ycombinator.com/highlights * bestcomments: Highest-voted recent comments https://news.ycombinator.com/bestcomments https://news.ycombinator.com/bestcomments [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/lists https://news.ycombinator.com/lists
- teachrdan 2y agoFrom u/buryat: SR-71 speed check One time we were going fast a small plane got on the radio and said "how fast am i going" the tower said "you are going fast" and then a bigger plane got on the radio and said "haha i think i am going faster how fast am i going" and the tower said "you are going a little faster" and then a jet fighter was going really fast and talked like a really cool guy and said "hey there, I sound like a cool guy, tell me how fast I'm going" and the tower said "you are going very fast" but he sounded totally normal And then I wanted to say something but that was against the rules, and then the other guy in my plane said "hey tower, are we going fast" and the tower said "yes you are going like a million fast" and then the guy in my plane said "I think it's a million and one fast" and then the tower said "lol yeah ur plane is good" and then I said "did we just become best friends" and the other guy said "yes" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29373436 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29373436
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- tomjakubowski 2y agothat's copy pasta, not a buryat original
- solardev 2y agoI think it's a parody of the original: https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Aircraft/Stories/sr-71-blackbird-speed-check-story https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Aircraft/Stories/sr-71-blac...
- meowster 2y agoThe original story doesn't pass the smell test, but it's fun and hard to disprove. Sled Driver is a great book for anyone looking for something to read. Physical copies sell for the hundreds of dollars, but there is a PDF floating on the high seas.
- 2y ago
- IamLoading 2y agoi found this funny. bitcoin's first HN post, and commentor claiming its cute, but no will entertain the idea. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=600813 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=600813
- projektfu 2y agoIn some ways, it's not wrong.
- pavlov 2y agoSince Bitcoin fans have entirely pivoted away from “peer-to-peer electronic currency” to “no actually it’s a store of value mumble mumble gold mumble ETFs”, that old comment was on point.
- codegeek 2y agoAnd everything they said is still true. yes there are some believers but most crypto lovers are nothing but trying to get rich quick. No real world practical adoption after 15+ years.
- LawrenceKerr 2y agoExcept for it creating the possibility of transferring wealth digitally, to anyone, across borders, without any centralized intermediary you have to trust. That's pretty amazing, especially for people who live unbanked, or in hyperinflationary economies with totalitarian governments.
- Der_Einzige 2y agoExcept in practice western union does almost all of that (minus centralized intermediary) more reliably, hence why the overwhelming majority of the third world doesn't use or rely on crypto despite these supposed benefits (which seem tailor made to help the third world out)
- btilly 2y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9562212 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9562212 has a 2015 discussion of the same topic, with many good comments.
- ruuda 2y agoThis one was iconic among the people involved, we printed it and stuck it on the wall in the office: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13783584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13783584
- basch 2y agoI'm partial to this comment from Jedd saying my "seen things you wouldn't believe, attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion" / bill gates installs movie maker esque comment was his favorite of all time. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17522861 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17522861 /bias
- tyre 2y ago> Do blind people not have feet? I'm confused by the geometry of this story. . > People often complain about how complex it is, but it's really just a matter of passing endofunctions through transplainer pipelines so that you can asynchronously hydrate the islands. . > I sent it to my wife but she spelled her own name wrong and now she thinks I have a crush on someone else . > Is zero greater than or equal to zero? Yes! reply > > What an obviously unreasonable position reply.
- janderland 2y agoSources?
- vgbm 2y agoI couldn’t find the first one. 2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31610005 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31610005 3: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36570438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36570438 4: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30723129 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30723129
- throwitaway1123 2y agoFound the first one (using HN's Algolia search api) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37803494 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37803494
- scrlk 2y agoBrian Armstrong looking for a Coinbase co-founder: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3754664 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3754664
- Carrok 2y agoI enjoy that his motivation for starting Coinbase was that credit card transaction fees are too high, and digital currency can solve this problem. Here we are, 12 years later, and people still buy and sell cryptocurrency almost exclusively as an investment/bet, and very rarely is it used to facilitate any real transactions.
- flessner 2y agoNot to forget that "cheap fees" is an argument that doesn't hold up anymore - Bitcoin and Ethereum fees are outlandish; Solana and other chains are just about "alright". The tech at its core is really interesting though, sadly the most innovation seems to be in marketing at the moment.
- knowaveragejoe 2y agoThe fees are virtually nothing on the layer 2 chains, but of course that's besides the point because it's a hurdle for anyone remotely non-technical to get there.
- flessner 2y agoAll new networks promise low fees, but as soon as the activity shifts there they don't hold up. I have seen it happen too many times before and is just by design of the fee market. I don't even think the hurdle is that big, I find a lot of "crypto wallets" nicer to use than many banking apps - main issue imo is the risk to loose funds, which is significant even for technical users.
- toomuchtodo 2y agoAnd the Fed released FedNow to support cheap domestic US instant payments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36801491 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36801491 Sometimes, a startup is not the path to solve for a problem statement (but you can still be wildly financially successful as is the case with Brian).
- dllthomas 2y agoIt's a little personal, but https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27092729 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27092729
- pungentsound 2y ago[dead]
- maxbond 2y agonear's oral history of BSNES https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21026000 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21026000
- maxbond 2y agoAsk HN: How do I safely contact drug cartels? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36731320 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36731320
- fileeditview 2y agohaha! the replies are hilarious.. also considering their usernames. good laugh.. thanks!
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- kirubakaran 2y agoHe was clearly trolling > I'll be sure to have the cartels sign my EULA before proceeding with anything https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36738007 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36738007
- ChrisArchitect 2y agoSome searches: Ask HN: What Hacker News comments have you bookmarked? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19716401 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19716401 Ask HN: What are the most uplifting comments you've read on HN? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9393213 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9393213 Ask HN: Favorite HN comment(s) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14396104 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14396104
- VoodooJuJu 2y ago>Nice try FBI cockwad... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25884541 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25884541 Goofy (but not r*ddit-tier) comments like the above are iconic in their own special way on this intellectually serious site.
- chatmasta 2y ago"The 4-color map theory is bunk," [0] a comment in which a user boldly refutes modern mathematics and, when faced with contradictory evidence, continues to double down on his assertions. (Note the OP is flagged so you need to be logged in with showdead to view it.) [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16862553 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16862553
- gadders 2y ago"Entrepreneurship is like one of those carnival games where you throw darts or something. Middle class kids can afford one throw. Most miss. A few hit the target and get a small prize. A very few hit the center bullseye and get a bigger prize. Rags to riches! The American Dream lives on. Rich kids can afford many throws. If they want to, they can try over and over and over again until they hit something and feel good about themselves. Some keep going until they hit the center bullseye, then they give speeches or write blog posts about "meritocracy" and the salutary effects of hard work. Poor kids aren't visiting the carnival. They're the ones working it." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15659076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15659076
- withinboredom 2y agoAlong the same lines: "[..]Here’s the recipe for success, as far as I can tell: 1. You’re not going to make any money from your side projects. Internalize that, and believe it. 2. Do everything in your power to try to make money from your side projects.[...]" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39508076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39508076
- withinboredom 2y ago--- Yes. Un-wise super intelligent programmers are the worst. They come up with the most amazing roundabout way to achieve even the most mundane tasks, and consider complex code a mark of honour, rather than a pathology to be purged. At some point people mature and realize that their job when writing code for work is not to concoct brilliant puzzles for next maintainer, but to do exactly the opposite. And then they reach the meta-level of realizing that simplifying things is actually just as hard and pleasing as puzzle-making, and they've reached a maturity in the quality their program design. The worst kinds of programmers are those that plateau at the "Riddler" stage. They potentially are able carve themselves a nice safe niche, but the value they could have delivered could have been so much more if they'd ever matured. "Oh, that code... yeah, better call Edward ... it's his baby, supercomplex. Nobody seems to be smart enough to work in it except Mr. Nygma". There are pieces of code that are potentially super-complex due to the intrinsic complexity of the problem space. But since for an outsider it's impossible to distinguish between the two, utmost empathy should be always used to introduce new people to such a thing. -- fsloth: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37808848 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37808848
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- RobertRies 2y agoI think about it often. toaster fucker problem: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25667362 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25667362
- DaviNunes 2y ago"revolutionary battery checklist" meme comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28025930 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28025930
- pcwalton 2y agomoxie and Telegram's discussion about Telegram's unorthodox security choices: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6915741 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6915741
- dang 2y agoIf anyone sees great examples that haven't been added to https://news.ycombinator.com/highlights https://news.ycombinator.com/highlights yet, please let us know at hn@ycombinator.com. We love getting those suggestions! I still need to make an "I feel lucky"-style random sample version of that page.
- em-bee 2y agowhat would be useful is to show comments in the order they are added to that list. and not in the order they were posted. i check this page every day, but if you add old comments, i won't see them.
- iLemming 2y agoThread between Rich Hickey and Alan Kay about 'Data'. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11945722 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11945722 I'm on my phone, hopefully that's the correct link.
- srcnkcl 2y agoFor me its this one ;) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35100297 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35100297
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]