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Merry Christmas HN

283 points by maguay ↗ HN
I wanted to wish everyone on HN a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Years before many of us sign off the net for the next couple days. I've learned so much from many of you this year, and it's amazing how quickly you can get advice and tips here. I only regret I didn't start coming here sooner.

Here's to a great 2011 for us all!

119 comments

[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 204 ms ] thread
kleiba
Thanks, and many karma points to you!
vanni
How many upvotes on this off-topic post (and comments)... And today is not even Christmas! Breaking news here!
rick_2047
I don't want to pick on anyone (nothing personal maguay) but does this belong here? I mean this is supposed to be a high quality news site and not a place to post touchy feely comments. We frown upon too political comments/posts and try to avoid flame wars over silly things. So in that sense, this post is not supposed to be here.
maguay
Sorry ... I definitely wasn't meaning to junk up HN. I thought it went along with many recent posts in Ask HN where people thank others for advice or help they'd received from HN.

At any rate, I highly respect the quality of HN, and will try to keep this in mind with future posts. Happy Holidays all the same!

rick_2047
I knew I would get down voted for this comment (all hail HN's hypocrisy) but I just had to say this. As I stated above, nothing personal.

And this does not go with the thank you notes. They are usually appended by a little brief of what people helped them with and which advice they did pick (or not pick). There are also (sometimes) analysis of what happened next.

maguay
I understand ... no problem. Though I did get a laugh about jsm386 saying it was the annual Airing of Grievances :)
PostOnce
Repeating what you said above, and contributing "I knew I would get downvoted for this" don't really belong on HN either. In fact they're probably worse. Heh.
rick_2047
Look at the second line, I explained why his comment is not in line with the thank you notes

Edit: Also personal comments also do not belong to HN

PostOnce
Maybe you should've made a 250,000 polygon WebGL Santa that waves and wishes us all a merry Christmas, with a Customize button that allows you to add a custom greeting, which is converted to audio via some speech synth engine, for $0.99, and submitted it as your startup. Also available for iPhone and Android. Coming soon for Blackberry. You're going to disrupt the holiday market. You'll be able to make a $46,000,000 exit by Easter, but if you hang on and make a 3D rabbit app, you can reach even greater heights.

I'm going nowhere with this post. :P

rick_2047
I think people would really buy something along that line. I mean if they can buy a application to make fart noises[1], they why not this?

[1]http://ifartmobile.com/

PostOnce
You can have that one free. Go find yourself a contractor on Elance for a couple hundred dollars, and in a few days, you too can be on the road to infinite wealth.
tlrobinson
Yeah but if it doesn't use Node.js and Clojure and NoSQL it will fail.
mkramlich
plus use a MongoDB backend. because MongoDB is web scale.
bherms
Is it really so bad to let our guard down for a few minutes to celebrate the holidays and the things we're thankful for?

Your office is supposed to be (in most cases) a professional environment for conducting business, but everyone has a holiday party each year... Just sayin.

rick_2047
Then why don't we take our guard down when someone posts a little sarcasm or a small joke. Why do these posts always have a -4 or less karma? Why don't we have a separate section for lolcatz pics? In an office we have all that, nobody is totally professional with their first hand colleagues.
ugh
Memes kill my experience on so many other websites, that’s why I will downvote every comment which makes reference to a meme. (Other meaningful content might save the comment sometimes.) Others seem to agree which is why those kinds of comments always get downvoted quickly.

All the other stuff – sarcasm, jokes – is not always downvoted, it sometimes even receives a lot of upvotes. Don’t expect every joke to be upvoted, even if it’s a witty one. I guess it is consensus that we don’t want to see HN flooded with jokes and sarcasm.

rick_2047
Why this hypocrisy then? Shouldn't we have equal standards for all the things?
davidw
It's not hypocrisy, it's just very subjective. People upvote funny things from time to time, and downvote things that aren't funny often. There's no objective standard for that, obviously, but generally, 'funny' means something fairly new and unique and with some thought behind it, not trotting out some lame old sarcastic joke.

Edit: I suppose the moral of the story is: if you're not sure, don't post it.

ugh
No we shouldn’t and it’s not hypocrisy. It’s appropriate editorial control. Think how a magazine editor would think.

A great profile of Julian Assange might be worthy front page material if it is the first Wikileaks article in months, it probably isn’t if articles about Wikileaks were on the front page every day the whole last month.

Locke1689
We're not really celebrating "the holidays," though. We're celebrating one holiday. Technically we could have one of these posts for every religious holiday during the year (meaning we'd have at least one post every day). It's pretty inarguable that this post represents a really high signal-to-noise ratio or makes a difference in any way. Why should we make an exception for this post?
jacoblyles
Well it is the most important holiday of the year in North and South America, Australia, Europe, much of Africa, and for a sizable minority population of Asians, and likely for people currently living in space stations or Antarctica. The community is a sum of its members, and much of the community is currently enjoying the holiday spirit. If the community should wish to indulge in non-Western and non-Christian holidays as well, I will not bah-humbug their holiday experience.
Locke1689
Well, first you're overstating the percentage of Christians in the world. Second, you're completely missing the point. Religious holidays (or really holidays in general) have no place on HN. I will "bah-humbug their holiday experience," as you say, because I don't think this content serves an intellectually interesting purpose. There are plenty of places for people to celebrate their religion -- this does not need to be another.

I really don't feel this is worthy of a big debate, though. My position is that HN is not a place for religious discussion, positive or negative, unless it has a more overreaching intellectual purpose. There's not much more to say.

jacoblyles
I'm a strict atheist, but I'm also a descendant of Western civilization (formerly known as "Christendom"). As such, I spend the Christmas season as my forefathers have for the last few thousand years - enjoying the heightened good cheer of my fellow men, relishing the opportunity to spend time with my friends and family, and counting my blessings.

Hacker News is a news site, but it is also a community of hackers. If a HNer needs a place to stay in Mountain View or is in trouble in some other way, I would try to help them. As such, the occasional touch of a human element is appropriate. I feel it is acceptable to send my fellow hackers the traditional good wishes and cheer as my civilization (and most of theirs) have done during this time of year for generations, while not seeking to be exclusionary or force my beliefs on anyone. I see it as the digital analogue of taking a moment of time at a technical conference to tell my colleague that I hope his family is doing well. I would hope he wouldn't snap back at me that it was off-topic.

It seems that aggressive atheists are more annoying than Christians nowadays.

kmfrk
It depends on whether you think Hacker News is a community or not.
rick_2047
As I said, all hail HN's hypocrisy. When we have a slight sarcasm or a small joke we all downvote it. Then why do you think this belongs here, this is the type of thing we try to avoid in those sarcasm or jokes. You see, the joke and sarcasms should be OK if we are a community shouldn't they be? But we are a community which tries to generate high quality content related to hacking and startups. I don't think this is at all related to any of those things. If you want to put up with this, why not put up with nonsensical sarcasm?
ErrantX
In my experience... genuinely funny original jokes get upvotes. The same tired old memes or the "obvious" line are not.

But this is "Merry Christmas" which, if you think about it, is a holiday almost all of us (globally) share :)

nitrogen
Perhaps the upvote heuristic used by the HN hive mind is a bit more complex than you initially believed?
rick_2047
Naah, its just a hypocrite and does what it feels like doing.
vanni
So true, Rick. So boring those downvoters. They upvote "Thanks!", "Merry Christmas!", "Topbar is red!" and downvote criticisms on karma distortion and off-topicity. Mmh...
ankimal
I thought the politically correct greeting was "Happy Holidays!". I guess the jury is still out on that one. http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/faith/50892288-142/christmas-pe...
ankimal
Downvoted? Well, I ve been corrected before.

Merry Christmas, Happy New year and Happy Holidays to everyone.

EDIT: How could I forget my favorite. Happy Festivus and I ll see you around the aluminum pole. :)

nhebb
Merry Christmas, Happy New year and Happy Holidays to everyone.

What, no Festivus?

dhughes
On Festivus Day too, the nerve!
jacoblyles
Happy Holidays is indeed more politically correct, but offense at celebration of Western traditions is one of the most noisome aspects of political correctness.
robyates
You edited the post to include it! It's a Festivus mircle!
ryanwaggoner
"Happy Holidays...is what terrorists say."

-30 Rock

iamdave
Thanks maguay! Best to you and yours in 2011
iamdave
Did I really get a downvote for saying thank you?

edit: heh, wasn't trying to suggest I deserve anything, just found that very...shallow.

maguay
Thanks, and same to you :)
kilian
Have a merry christmas and a happy new year all!

...Though knowing myself, I'll also be here tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after anyway ;)

jasonlbaptiste
Merry Christmas everyone. Hacker News is kind of like the gift that keeps on giving all year. Hope everyone has the ability to take some time off :). Oh and it seems pg just did a little bit of "Christmas decorating".
timmorgan
Just noticed HN has alternating red/green link numbers on the homepage. Merry Christmas pg!
qeorge
Topbar is red too if you logout :)
ErrantX
#be2828 is the colour for those who want to change :)

(I liked it last year so it's been my custom topcolor for a while now)

[deleted]
(comment deleted)
barrkel
Thanks for pointing that out. I read on Twitter that HN homepage was in Christmas colours, but apart from an abnormally dark top bar, I hadn't noticed what exactly had changed, owing to colour-blindness.
patio11
Merry Christmas guys. Peace, health, and prosperity for you and your families today and always.
juiceandjuice
This site partially motivated me to find a better job closer to CS/dev stuff from Physics, and I couldn't be happier (although I'm doing dev stuff for Physics :)

Thanks HN.

tylerdiaz
Merry Christmas & Happy new years to everyone.

Cheers to another year of hacking! :D

[deleted]
(comment deleted)
MikeCapone
Have a nice Holiday break everyone!
danest
Happy holidays everyone. I have learned so much from here and can't wait to see what will come next year!
j2d2j2d2
Happy Atheistmas! (not trying to troll)

Edit: What would you prefer? I'm trying to acknowledge my beliefs during this holiday season and cheer the holidays on, but I am an atheist. Perhaps silence would be better?

m_myers
Untry harder. ;)
TheAmazingIdiot
I would, but the Solstice is passed :P

Obligatory_Bad_Xmas_Song

Heretic's Christmas Carol

God rest ye merry Pagan folk, Let nothing you dismay. Remember there's no evidence There was a Christmas Day. When Christ was born is just not known, No matter what they say. Glad tidings of logic & fact; Logic & fact. Glad tidings of logic & fact.

There was no star of Bethlehem; There was no angel song. There could have been no Wise Men For the journey was too long. The stories in the Bible Are historically wrong.

Glad tidings of logic & fact; Logic & fact. Glad tidings of logic & fact.

Much of your Christmas customs Come from Persia and from Greece, From solstice celebrations Of the ancient Middle East. We know this so-called "Holy Day" Is but a Pagan feast

Glad tidings of logic & fact; Logic & fact Glad tidings of logic & fact.

TheAmazingIdiot
I would, but the Solstice is passed :P

Obligatory_Bad_Xmas_Song

Heretic's Christmas Carol

God rest ye merry Pagan folk, Let nothing you dismay. Remember there's no evidence There was a Christmas Day. When Christ was born is just not known, No matter what they say.

Glad tidings of logic & fact; Logic & fact. Glad tidings of logic & fact.

There was no star of Bethlehem; There was no angel song. There could have been no Wise Men For the journey was too long. The stories in the Bible Are historically wrong.

Glad tidings of logic & fact; Logic & fact. Glad tidings of logic & fact.

Much of your Christmas customs Come from Persia and from Greece, From solstice celebrations Of the ancient Middle East. We know this so-called "Holy Day" Is but a Pagan feast

Glad tidings of logic & fact; Logic & fact Glad tidings of logic & fact.

angstrom
From one atheist to another. Merry Christmas.
pkulak
Exactly. Christmas is my culture, not my religion.
slvn
Joyeux Noel & Bonne Annee from Amsterdam where we celebrated another Santa Claus just about three weeks ago. So here we go again. Slightly different tune though. It makes me think that Religion is Culture.
ericb
If it makes you feel better, christmas trees seem to have been a pagan tradition, and have no connection to anything biblical. The gift giving and santa are pretty non biblical too.
jeromec
Yes, my understanding is trees, wreaths etc. were part of Pagan celebrations. The winter holiday season was to celebrate winter solstice. The Catholic church said well the people are celebrating anyway, so let's move Christ's birthday to Dec. 25th (Christ mass) and make it all about him. Someone please feel free to correct anything wrong. Happy Solstice and Merry Christmas!
guelo
The gift giving does tie in with the 3 wise men in the Jesus story.
caryme
Actually, the Jesus story never even says there were 3 wise men. It names 3 gifts, but never counts the wise men. Much of the Christmas story (including names for those "3" wise men) comes from church tradition, not the (very short) bible story at all.
Natsu
> Edit: What would you prefer?

"Happy Holidays!" is probably best, if less explicit.

Have a good one, whatever you celebrate.

bmelton
Not advocating that you should be silent, or be rude in any way, but are you attempting to promote atheism or just broadcast that you are?

I guess I'm curious. Christianity generally endorses recruitment, or 'spreading the gospel', as it were, which I assume is where holidays like this, their 'embrace and extend' methodologies from Pagan beliefs, and sayings like this are born from. Since, to my knowledge, atheism has no such doctrine (unless you actually belong to an atheist sect of some sort), then what exactly are you trying to convey?

In all seriousness, in my estimation, "Have a nice day" might most closely reflect your desire for others to have a good day without acknowledging the season or the lord it's supposedly in celebration of.

waterhouse
You could read up on the teachings of the human Jesus Christ that have to do with being peaceful and kind to your neighbor, decide that you like these teachings, and wish people merry Christmas with these teachings in mind. (I'm afraid I mostly substitute "cultural osmosis" for "reading up".) Merry Christmas, by the way.
Mz
You could celebrate "Festivus", I guess.

I'm not a big fan of Christmas myself. I used to have a page on one of my websites titled "bah humbug" with a picture of me in a sweatshirt showing broken christmas tree decorations and the words "Bah Humbug". I put it up as a joke one night.

It can be tough sometimes to try to be warm and friendly and pass out sincere well wishes while remaining honest/sincere if you don't happen to believe the same stuff a lot of other people believe.

Anyway, seasons greetings and well wishes to all.

(From the gal who went around wishing people at work today "Merry four day weekend!")

Peace.

stuartm
Sir Isaac Newton was born on December 25, so some atheists will be celebrating Newtonmas as a secular alternative to Christmas.

Happy Newtonmas!

CallMeV
Just don't let your inertial mass get so great that the force of gravity from the Earth overwhelms the force exerted by your body's muscles.
whimsy
What about the Winter solstice and the turn of the new year? They're pretty cool events, and secular to boot. Natural phenomena are cool! (... Though I guess New Year's is artificial.)
CopyrightTroll
Merry Christmas! May your unauthorized performances bring you and yours happiness through out the year!
joshu
Happy holidays. May your code compile without errors.
jrockway
But now I'm getting runtime errors at 3am :(
geoka9
I wish. I's mostly interpreted languages nowadays for me. But thanks anyway! :)
mkramlich
Or even better... may your code not have to "compile" (Python, Ruby, Perl, JavaScript...) ;)
choward93
Merry Christmas everyone. This is the best community I have seen ever on the internet and hope we all have have a strong finish to 2010. The content shared here has made me a (subjectively) better person since I joined. What a great gift, thank you!
jjoe
And I thought PG is Jewish! But I must say I didn't notice any Hanukkah color festivities here. Anyway, Merry Christmas all!

Regards

Joe