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Merry Christmas HN
283 points by maguay on Dec 23, 2010 | hide | past | favorite | 113 comments
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!



Merry Christmas guys. Peace, health, and prosperity for you and your families today and always.


Where is the Christmas Bingo Card Creator?


Everybody knows Patrick loves mini-sites ;-) http://christmasbingocards.net/


Did a quick Google search and came across a site that features some Christmas Bingo Cards.

http://www.bingocardcreator.com/bingo-cards/holidays/christm...


No printer, but it works great on the iPad! Thanks for sharing the link!


Just noticed HN has alternating red/green link numbers on the homepage. Merry Christmas pg!


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.


Topbar is red too if you logout :)


#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)


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".


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?


From one atheist to another. Merry Christmas.


Exactly. Christmas is my culture, not my religion.


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.


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.


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.


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

Happy Newtonmas!


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.


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.


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!


The gift giving does tie in with the 3 wise men in the Jesus story.


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.


> Edit: What would you prefer?

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

Have a good one, whatever you celebrate.


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.


Untry harder. ;)


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.


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.


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.)


Happy December 25th!


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.


Happy holidays. May your code compile without errors.


But now I'm getting runtime errors at 3am :(


I wish. I's mostly interpreted languages nowadays for me. But thanks anyway! :)


Or even better... may your code not have to "compile" (Python, Ruby, Perl, JavaScript...) ;)


As of my last page reload, it looks like Hacker News is celebrating as well!

(for posterity: http://localhostr.com/file/gvXIHto/christmas-hn.png )


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!


Happy christmas to you all - I've also learnt so much since I started reading HN. Maybe my new year's resolution will be to stop lurking and start posting :)


Just noticed I am now only a couple of weeks over my first year here on HN. Its been fantastic, regardless of anyone who says the site is going downhill, its as good now as it was 381 days ago.

Happy Christmas All!


Merry Christmas, Maguay and Hacker News. Thank you for motivating me to become a hacker. I can't imagine doing anything else.


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...


"Happy Holidays...is what terrorists say."

-30 Rock


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. :)


Happy Holidays is indeed more politically correct, but offense at celebration of Western traditions is one of the most noisome aspects of political correctness.


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

What, no Festivus?


On Festivus Day too, the nerve!


You edited the post to include it! It's a Festivus mircle!


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 ;)


Happy holidays everyone. I have learned so much from here and can't wait to see what will come next year!


Merry Christmas everyone and thank you all for the great insights you gave me this year. HN is, without doubt, the best community on the web.


Merry Christmas & Happy new years to everyone.

Cheers to another year of hacking! :D


Merry Christmas! Tomorrow i'll be back saying sqrt(-1)/8 ! :-)


There is a central limit theorem joke in here somewhere, I just know it.


Here here. Happy Holidays everyone!


Merry Christmas everyone. May all your dreams come true and life shower with happiness


Hi there.

I would just like to share my personal view of the 25. As an atheist, I don´t much care about the usual celebration. However, I, too, find there is something worth celebrating: The christmas truce of 1914. Though a religious event in itself, it also shows basic human values, like independence (as in the soldiers who did not heed their orders to avoid such fraternizations) understanding and forgiveness.

http://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs...

Happy truce day to all!


People sign off the net?


here is a simple 4square like xmas badge http://www.barbafan.de/christmas2010/ merry xmas to all of you


Merry christmas HNers. This is from a fellow HNer half the world away in Asia that feels more connected to the greater global tech scene because of HN. Thanks HN


May you all find the company you desire most, good food and liquid libation when you need it, indulgence without consequence, and the time to do everything you truly desire - whether snuggling with a loved one or trying to pin down that aggressively elusive bug in your code that keeps stopping up your compiler.

Actually, I ought to just start with "May you finally manage to pin down that bug in your code." Nothing comes close to the elation of victory.

Peace.


Merry Christmas everyone, I am thankful for all the advice given to me in my first year on HN! You are all a wonderful bunch.


Thanks maguay! Best to you and yours in 2011


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.


Thanks, and same to you :)


Happy Sparkle Season!


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


Thanks, and many karma points to you!


How many upvotes on this off-topic post (and comments)... And today is not even Christmas! Breaking news here!


Have a nice Holiday break everyone!


Merry Christmas break everyone... wish that your new year kicks atleast as much ass the old one! =)

Cheers, - V


To all the whining Atheists,

Christmas is also a global, secular celebration that has spread well beyond it's Christian roots:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas#Celebration

Merry Christmas!


Gabon eta Urte berri on denoi. Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year to all of you.


Mele Kalikimaka!


Me too! Wish you a Merry Christmas and a prosperous new year!


I found HN this year and it changed my life. I try to spread the message further with my own means.

Thanks to all of you!


Happy Holidays :)


Merry Solstice and Happy New Year's.


Merry Christmas! May your unauthorized performances bring you and yours happiness through out the year!


I believe "Seasons Greetings" is the optimally nondescript, and therefore PC, phrase, only acknowledging that we are, currently, in a season and that we greet it.


Merry Cthulhu everyone! and Happy Flying Spaghetti Monster Eve!


I have no idea how to interpret that. I can't imagine anything merry (for humans, anyway) about Cthulhu.

<eyes cross>


m̢e͜r͘r҉y z̵al̡g̡omas͡!


If I google that (EDIT: I mean, without the boxes), will the world come to an end or something?


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.


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.


Today is the 23rd, which is Festivus. Perhaps this was a ritual Airing Of Grievances.

ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festivus#Airing_of_Grievances


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?


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


Why this hypocrisy then? Shouldn't we have equal standards for all the things?


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.


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.


Nice 'troll' rick but most don't get it.


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!


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


Yeah but if it doesn't use Node.js and Clojure and NoSQL it will fail.


The original was all Flash intro.


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/


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.


plus use a MongoDB backend. because MongoDB is web scale.


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.


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.


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


I understand ... no problem. Though I did get a laugh about jsm386 saying it was the annual Airing of Grievances :)


It depends on whether you think Hacker News is a community or not.


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?


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 :)


Perhaps the upvote heuristic used by the HN hive mind is a bit more complex than you initially believed?


Naah, its just a hypocrite and does what it feels like doing.


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...


Lighten up - it's Christmas :)




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