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Comment by the_plus_one | Hacker News Reader

Is it just me, or is there some kind of asteroid game shooting bullets at my cursor while I try to read this [1]? I hate to sound mean, but it's a bit distracting. I guess it's my fault for having JavaScript enabled.

[1]: https://flak.tedunangst.com/script.js

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It's extremely distracting. I'm not normally one to have issues that require reduced motion, but the asteroids are almost distracting enough on their own, and the fact that it causes my cursor to vanish is a real accessibility issue. I didn't actually realize just how much I use my mouse cursor when reading stuff until now, partly as a fidget, partly as a controllable visual anchor as my eyes scan the page.

I actually can't read things on that site at all. I move my mouse around while reading, not necessarily near the words I'm currently reading, so when my mouse disappears it's haltingly distracting. In addition to that, the way the "game" visually interferes with the text that I'm trying to read makes it incredibly hard to focus on reading. These two things combine to make this site literally unreadable for me.

I don't get why people keep posting and upvoting articles from this user-hostile site.

It's sites like this that make me extremely grateful for firefox's reader mode.

I found it exceedingly difficult to read, so I ended up applying these ublock filter rules so I could read it:

  flak.tedunangst.com##.bl.shooter
  flak.tedunangst.com##.br.shooter
  flak.tedunangst.com##div.bullet

It still hides your cursor though.

And, if it hits, your cursor disappears! I wish there was some explosion.

Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Because way more people have opinions about e.g. asteroid game scripts on web pages than have opinions on RCUs, these subthreads spread like kudzu.

The described behavior sounds like significantly worse than tangential annoyance, and isn’t really a common occurrence even on modern user-hostile websites.

He used to have a loading screen that did nothing if you have JS enabled in your browser, but no loading screen (which, again, did nothing) if you had JS disabled. I'm pretty sure it's meant to deliberately annoy, though this one is less annoying than the loading screen was.

clean mirror:

https://archive.is/wMECM

No, it's the website's fault for doing stupid cutesy stuff that makes the page harder to read. Don't victim-blame yourself here.

god forbid people have fun on the internet

I really don't understand this "everything must be 100% serious all the time". Why is it stupid?

I generally think stuff like that make the web much more interesting.

In this case it was distracting though.

The HN hivemind decries the lack of humanity and personality of the internet of nowadays but at the same time wants every website to be 100% text, no JS, no CSS because allegedly nobody needs CSS and, if you dare to do something remotely "fancy" with the layout, you have to build it with <table>s.

This is not about "lack of humanity", but about violating fundamental UX rules such as hiding your cursor at random times. It's offensive.

You don't have to sacrifice usability while expressing personality.

I barely noticed it. The complaints I've read about it are making a mountain out of a molehill.

I didn't read the article because all the moving bits were too distracting. Something also turned my cursor invisible, which is rude.

Not sure anyone lost anything here, or anyone cares.

You should ask for a refund!

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