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Comment by turnsout | Hacker News Reader

Can’t tell if “clown” is an incredible typo in the submission or some comment on the owner of the offending platform, but either way I’m all about it

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I don't have some exquisite etymology to link to, and I can't speak to Rachel's personal context, but I'm quite confident that anti-corporate Americans of a certain age will read "the clown" as a reference to Ronald McDonald, in much the same way that "the mouse" means Mickey Mouse, i.e. Disney.

From the title I thought this was going to be about security issues with McDonald's WiFi.

It must just refer to the Cloud in a derogatory way, not the particular platform. It sounds so similar.

As a former would-be user of the cloud-to-butt extension, “clown” is a term I can truly get behind.

It's been pretty common (derogatory) slang for "the cloud" for many years in certain circles I am in, so I assume that was the usage hear.

The clown emoji is also useful in this regard in SSIDs or strings in programs (breaks all sorts of things that it shouldn't too)

I also like the Glaswegian "my computer is in the Clyde" meme. I always think of the cloud as a tired PC, bobbing around in the water, near Dumbarton.

Hilarious, I can hear this in my head. Thanks!

>slang for "the cloud"

Never had heard that but it was obvious from the title.

Cloud quite often is clown-computing, or maybe clown-car-computing.

Elastic Compute Clowncar braking in 3, 2, 1

I assumed Facebook i.e. Clowntown

Cloud to Clown substitution plugin?

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