True, the 'icon' for up-voting is an image and can be easily replaced by the unicode equivalent. HN uses an image in javascript to simulate a HTTP GET request

True, the 'icon' for up-voting is an image and can be easily replaced by the unicode equivalent. HN uses an image in javascript to simulate a HTTP GET request to signal that you have voted. ex. var img = new Image(); img.src = 'http://ycombinator.com/signal-voted?id=12345 http://ycombinator.com/signal-voted?id=12345; Makes sense because HN is not using jQuery or similar and it would be a lot more javascript to do it in a cross browser way (just source view hacker news - it's almost as small as it gets)