Ask HN: Favorite/Classic HN threads of all time

162 points by caaqil 4 years ago | 54 comments

The only similar thread that I could find was from 2012 (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3996652), so I decided to start one. Please share your all-time favorite HN threads here.

larrykubin 4 years ago |

I was going to post this standalone, but will post it here. I was recently reading the Hacker News initial reaction to Facebook acquiring Instagram in 2012:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3817840

One of the commenters says it will be the equivalent to Google buying YouTube. To which another commenter replies "bookmark this comment, see you in 2022". And here we are:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3818055

soneca 4 years ago | |

Such confidence while having no way to know if they would be right (because, no matter the arguments, they were trying to predict the future).

throwaway990dv 4 years ago | | |

If they were wrong, the comment would have continued rotting away unnoticed. But they got lucky and were right -- confirmation bias is a wonderful thing.

harshalizee 4 years ago | |

My favorite part is that a comment thread further down convinced that 'we're in a 2nd bubble now more than ever.'.

A decade later, nothing much has changed it seems.

jpgvm 4 years ago |

Probably still ranks #1 in ultimate HN comebacks:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079

capableweb 4 years ago | |

Lurking in a sibling thread is Colin speaking with Drew Houston (of Dropbox fame):

> we're in a similar space -- http://www.getdropbox.com (and part of the yc summer 07 program)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35088

In an alternative universe, Colin joined Dropbox and their UI would have been much more hardcore with better the whole product having better support for other OSes than just Windows and macOS!

anyfactor 4 years ago | |

For people who are new here (like me): cperciva >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Percival

gnicholas 4 years ago | |

TIL that handles stay green forever in early comments. I assumed they lost the green indicator after the account had weathered.

sokoloff 4 years ago | |

Came here to post that one as my all time favorite. Since you posted that one, I’ll give another classic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 (“I have qualms with Dropbox because Linux users could just X and Y and Z…”)

martincmartin 4 years ago | |

This is a great comeback. But I don't understand the reference to Ravi Vakil. Is Ravi known for being humble or something?

ZhangSWEFAANG 4 years ago | | |

That's his brother. The poster's name is Sanjay Vakil. I think he's saying - look at my brother. He is so successful and intelligent. Unless you have won the putnam (his bro was a 4 time putnam fellow), you have no right to be bolder than him.

As an aside, I think Sanjay has an inferiority complex or can't see outside of his immediate circle who knows his brother.

antonegc 4 years ago | | |

I’d wager sanj@ is a sibling of Ravi Vakil, from a quick LinkedIn search. Still, a little perplexing appeal to authority there.

1123581321 4 years ago | |

It’s a great one. I have to say I also love sanj’s “Totally busted. Just the once, though, huh?” response.

syspec 4 years ago | |

I'm a little lost, what makes it a good comeback

moritonal 4 years ago | | |

Someone sarcastically asked if he'd won a difficult math competition due to his self-grandourous parent comment.

His response was, yes, yes he had won the difficult competition they referenced.

nischalsamji 4 years ago |

I sell onions on the internet. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19728132 I keep coming back to read this every once in a while.

eightturn 4 years ago | |

appreciate that (peter here).. the 2022 Vidalia crop is planted, and we recently trimmed the tops.. I posted some pics here if you're curious: https://www.vidaliaonions.com/farm-news/trimming-vidalia-oni...

ElCapitanMarkla 4 years ago | | |

Look at those blue skies. Looks great

rak1507 4 years ago |

https://danluu.com/hn-comments/ is a good list

duckmysick 4 years ago |

I've been saving interesting threads and comments in my favorites (they are in my profile). Many old-timers are surprised that Hacker News has a favorite feature. Comments are tricky: to favorite a comment you need to first show its details by clicking on the timestamp.

Now, for the links. A lot of freelancing and consulting advice threads have a good discussion and stories from the trenches:

Starting as a consultant - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21189801

Getting paid - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4817193

Common mistakes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21728436

Lessons learned from a veteran developer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25658216

Branding and marketing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23282278

Hiring a personal assistant - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29336234

Other pretty cool and fun threads:

Crowdsourced HN book recommendations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28595967

Product recommendations from HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29353980

What 4chan thinks of HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6747373

CTDOCodebases 4 years ago |

The comment thread about a developer of a high level of mathematic ability who wrote and maintained a widely used piece of software used for backups. Someone commented something to the effect of “He gave up on solving Millennium problems to write backup software”.

lambdatronics 4 years ago | |

This one? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24537865

CTDOCodebases 4 years ago | | |

Yes that was it. Thanks for providing the link.

_dain_ 4 years ago | |

And in so doing, saving the world orders of magnitude more in $$$ than he could have won solving a Millenium problem.

mwattsun 4 years ago |

I looked on my hard drive to see what I saved and there were two, other than the usual technical saves:

Why Hacker News Thinks PHP Won Something (2009)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=438871

Unfortunately the article appears to have been scrubbed from gilesbowkett.blogspot.com and is not on the Wayback machine. Basically, the article trashes PHP and Hacker News, which I thought was interesting.

and

The company that has a monopoly on ice cream truck music (2020)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24744879

Noumenon72 4 years ago |

Fred, that coworker who never stops refactoring:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24120359

I will never stop being Fred, but this thread keeps me from confusing my drive to refactor with what the company actually needs. Particularly these comments:

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24120713

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24121018

flurie 4 years ago |

It's a job posting, but I think about Dear Future Homejoy Engineer near the end of every year.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8794956

emehex 4 years ago | |

Thread posted on Dec 25, 2014.

"Homejoy shut down on July 31, 2015." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homejoy)

acalzycalzy 4 years ago | |

Are you saying this is a good post or a stupid post?

yuppie_scum 4 years ago | | |

That CEO was a POS for making his employees work Christmas

synaesthesisx 4 years ago | |

This is incredibly cringeworthy - for a company CEO to brag about employees working through Christmas. Just wow.

lambdatronics 4 years ago |

The famous Alan Kay appearance: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11939851

elorant 4 years ago |

All passive income threads

542458 4 years ago |

The Dropbox launch post is a great example of why you shouldn’t take (particularly dismissive) comments here too seriously. (This isn’t to dunk on any of the contributors there - but just a reminder that we’re all fallible and have biases)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

On that note, PG coining “middlebrow dismissal” isn’t a very elaborate comment, but is a term that has entered a few people’s lexicon.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4726248

Both the article and the comments here have some good life info (“I Thought I Would Have Accomplished More Today and Also Before I Was 35”)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24316725

Also, check out the top posts all time, and top comments all time.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...