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Comment by post_break | Hacker News Reader

"On Day 2, John was to meet with Steve. I never knew whether it was by design or not, but on that day John wore a T-shirt that featured a smiley face with a bullet hole in the forehead from which trickled a few drops of blood."

Was it the watchmen comedian logo?

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https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thresh.jpg

John Carmack in 1997 wearing what is presumably the exact shirt.

I don’t think anyone could ask for more than this post provides.

Great find!

I think the guy in the car is Thresh, who won Carmack's Ferrari in a quake tournament:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Fong

You can download recordings of his tournaments, where you can freely change your POV to thresh, or his opponent, or just fly around, and watch him play. Pretty amazing skill!

I think it's a similar design, but I have a vivid memory of a kid in my elementary school (~1995) wearing a shirt like this: black t-shirt with a big yellow smiley face with gory bullet-wound to the forehead. It was a strong image especially for kids. The Watchmen logo is spattered on the side. I can't find the t-shirt I'm remembering but there are similar current examples: https://www.amazon.com/Smiley-Bullet-Black-Adult-T-Shirt/dp/...

> Watchmen Smiley Face: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmen#/media/File:Watchmen,...

When I was a kid I made an animation of that on an amiga 500. Yellow smiley face, gunshot in the forehead and blood dripping down.

I showed my dad and I still don’t know if he was impressed that I figured out how to do that or thought I should see a psychiatrist.

Does anybody remember the interface from Plan9 or Inferno where the "kill process" button was originally a smiley face with blood trickling from a bullet hole in the forehead? Then they fixed it to be more bland when it started shipping more.

Oh, and the Comedian just wore a regular smiley button. The blood was his own, spattered from when he was thrown from a building. No bullet hole.

The yellow smiley face was a prominent early-90s late 80s acid-house/rave subculture symbol, and a version with a bullethole in the head was common.

https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/article/a337mb/history-smiley-...

That seems likely from the description. I don't know if Jobs knowing that would've changed much for their interaction though.

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