* highlights: Particularly interesting comments (manually curated via request) https://news.ycombinator.com/highlights

* bestcomments: Highest-voted recent comments https://news.ycombinator.com/bestcomments

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/lists

https://smackernews.com/item/36731320 HN

(Note the OP is flagged so you need to be logged in with showdead to view it.)

[0] https://smackernews.com/item/16862553 HN

Ask HN: What Hacker News comments have you bookmarked?

https://smackernews.com/item/19716401 HN

Ask HN: What are the most uplifting comments you've read on HN?

https://smackernews.com/item/9393213 HN

Ask HN: Favorite HN comment(s)

https://smackernews.com/item/14396104 HN

I still need to make an "I feel lucky"-style random sample version of that page.

https://smackernews.com/item/600813 HN

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://smackernews.com/item/29373436 HN

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://smackernews.com/item/15659076 HN

https://smackernews.com/item/21026000 HN

Nice try FBI cockwad...

https://smackernews.com/item/25884541 HN

Goofy (but not r*ddit-tier) comments like the above are iconic in their own special way on this intellectually serious site.

Do blind people not have feet? I'm confused by the geometry of this story.

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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.

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I sent it to my wife but she spelled her own name wrong and now she thinks I have a crush on someone else

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Is zero greater than or equal to zero? Yes! reply

> What an obviously unreasonable position reply.

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://smackernews.com/item/37808848 HN

https://smackernews.com/item/11945722 HN

I'm on my phone, hopefully that's the correct link.

toaster fucker problem: https://smackernews.com/item/25667362 HN