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Official Hacker News T-Shirt

teespring.com

241–250 of 327 posts

Re: Official Hacker News T-Shirt

#241
Ok, let's break it down a bit.

What is it?

A t-shirt.

Why?

To help charity through Watsi.

Why that design?

Because this is a shirt about hacker news and not ycombinator itself. Even though they are hosted in the same place, they are two different things and brands.

Also, notice that the only common design clue in hacker news is the orange top bar with the gray background. Hacker news lacks a logo. The nex best thing to use would be the only other thing that visually differences it: the ugly design.

Why not the ycombinator logo?

Because the shirt is about hacker news. Not ycombinator itself.

Re: Official Hacker News T-Shirt

#242
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With sufficient karma (trying to remember: was it 300? 400?), you can set the color you prefer.

Interesting, I did not know that. Anybody know why the bar is defaulted to that shade of orange (#FF6600) in the first place?

I like the question. Until and unless the person who chose it wishes to answer, here's my attempt at a more-than-complete answer.

I guess orange may be chosen as a rather eye-catching color. A reddish orange may be chosen to be a bit more tasteful or distinctive.

The choice of RGB component values may originate in an older practice in web design called web-safe colors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_colors#Web-safe_colors). It uses the observation that 33 hexadecimal (let's write 0x33) evenly divides the range of an HTML red-green-blue color component: 0x00, 0x33, 0x66, 0x99, 0xCC, 0xFF. Choosing each of the three color components from among these six values yielded 6^3 = 216 colors, a palette that would fit into a low-end graphics adapter's table of 256 colors with room left over for system-defined colors.

Those who have studied Mersenne primes may recall that it is sufficient to observe that 8 is a composite number in order to prove that 0xFF = 0x100 - 1 = 2^8 - 1 is a composite number. And we compute that 2^8 - 1 = 255 which ends in 5, so it's obviously divisible by 5, the quotient being 51 = 0x33.

Re: Official Hacker News T-Shirt

#243
post #215
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like I said, the original comment is really more confused than dismissive. And I do feel kind of bad for making fun of the guy. I should have known that saying I wished it was the top comment might make it so. You're mistaken about the design though. It's both funny to make the design so minimalistic, and yet simultaneously a pretty bold assertion of brand power. And since we don't want HN to grow fast, we don't need…

There are already a bunch of mean comments in this thread. You're right that instant-dismissal and unconstructive criticism on HN is a problem. Some people will like the shirt and buy it. Some people will not like the shirt, and will not buy and and not make any comment on it. Some people will offer some kind of critique, which is sort of fun but kind of futile (the shirt is made and being sold. It's too late for cri…

I think the whole point of critique (esp. in this particular case) is to provide feedback. In both my and the OP's mind, the shirt was created with at least some mild hope that people might buy it. Offering what I consider to be a valid suggestion on how to improve sales is not futile. Now, if the shirt was posted with absolutely no expectation of sales then I would agree with your point.

Re: Official Hacker News T-Shirt

#245
post #23

It seemed particularly appropriate for the HN t-shirt to raise money for Watsi, since you guys in a sense discovered Watsi. They'd had some publicity before, but it was after their highly upvoted post on HN that their growth really took off. That was also how we found out about them.

I was surprised to see that the price is only $13.00. You could charge more in my opinion. I normally am not seeking a bargain when my purchase is affiliated with a group that I have a strong affinity for and when the proceeds are going to a good cause. Most of my past purchases of charitable t-shirts were in the $20-$30 range. Perhaps you will test a higher price for the next iteration and share the results in true…

$13 is okay for us non-USians having to pay the $10+ shipping. So, an option for an additional donation might be better.

Re: Official Hacker News T-Shirt

#246
post #238
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like I'm trapped in an HN parody. It's precisely because I want HN to be a site where people engage in meaningful discussion that I try to discourage people from upvoting the first dismissive comment they come across. Even discourage is probably too strong a word though. I feel like someone standing in the surf, trying to hold back a breaking wave with his hand. (I didn't answer his question because other user…

I feel like I'm trapped in an HN parody. Congratulations! We have a winner. You have just won first place in the crowd sourced competition for the front of V2.0 of the official Hacker News Tshirt. Honorable mention: Wear something people want. Correlation != clothesation. Fuck. That. Shirt. Take off this shirt and get back to work. Shirt early. Shirt often. Made from 100% down (votes). I clicked "threads" and got thi…

Don't forget the runner-up,

    Unknown or expired link.

Re: Official Hacker News T-Shirt

#247
post #238
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like I'm trapped in an HN parody. It's precisely because I want HN to be a site where people engage in meaningful discussion that I try to discourage people from upvoting the first dismissive comment they come across. Even discourage is probably too strong a word though. I feel like someone standing in the surf, trying to hold back a breaking wave with his hand. (I didn't answer his question because other user…

I feel like I'm trapped in an HN parody. Congratulations! We have a winner. You have just won first place in the crowd sourced competition for the front of V2.0 of the official Hacker News Tshirt. Honorable mention: Wear something people want. Correlation != clothesation. Fuck. That. Shirt. Take off this shirt and get back to work. Shirt early. Shirt often. Made from 100% down (votes). I clicked "threads" and got thi…

I'm assuming you're continuing the HN parody and intentionally making a silly comment, but by making such a parody you cross the line from parody to reality. The mind boggles...

Re: Official Hacker News T-Shirt

#248
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that people would abuse the downvote button and use it as a representation of "I disagree with you" is read of "this comment adds no value to the conversation."

Even with the current restrictions people still use it quite extensively as a "I disagree" button.

Interesting. The "reply" link is hidden for some comments - but not others - such as this one, yet I am able to bypass it by modifying the "reply" URL. Is this something new, or simply something I hadn't noticed before?

Re: Official Hacker News T-Shirt

#249

Is the price the same shipped anywhere in the world? Its starts asking for your credit card details before shipping information.

To the right it shows shipping cost, with a question mark next to it that explains the fee.

I think it's really misleading. I didn't notice this question mark, and found out about total price with shipment to UK only after I purchased it. There was no second step with confirmation or anything...

Shipping costs should just change on the page based on which country you select.

Re: Official Hacker News T-Shirt

#250
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kind of wish this were the top comment. It would be humorously appropriate if the top comment on the thread about the official HN t-shirt were the traditional nitpicking/point-missing type that is so commonly the top comment when people launch new technology here.

What is the point that is being missed? I thought the design was pretentious minimalism. It's minimal for the sake of it, not minimal because it's distilling the essence of something. The essence of HN is not the orange and grey colors. It's really hard to connect the shirt to HN when I look at it. The essence of HN to me is karma, usernames, YC, up/downvotes, programming, America, internet companies, drama, PG love…

Quite.

I would have preferred this across the chest.

    georgeorwell 20 minutes ago | link | parent | flag
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