The second code is:
Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A[1] http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/1sqj63/scientists_d...
But now, you are pot and I am kettle (or vice versa). Your comment adds no value or, I'd argue less value, because at least I was trying to be funny. </derail>
http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html
"The most dangerous form of stupid comment is not the
long but mistaken argument, but the dumb joke. [...]
Bad comments are like kudzu: they take over rapidly.
Comments have much more effect on new comments than
submissions have on new submissions. If someone submits
a lame article, the other submissions don't all become
lame. But if someone posts a stupid comment on a thread,
that sets the tone for the region around it. People
reply to dumb jokes with dumb jokes."
The "dumb" part is about it being a joke, as opposed to a serious contribution, argument or commentary. Not about the joke's quality as a joke. That is, even if you're Woody Allen, HN does not want you to write jokes in here -- and especially one liners without any other content.
I sometimes find it strange how much this community values orthodoxy. People work really hard to appear to be totally conventional HN readers. To share the same mannerisms, attitudes and opinions of the idealized HN user. I guess that this includes denying humor does not totally surprise me. It seems to be a caricature of itself.
One reason I value humor in my own life is that it reminds everyone of the absurdity which we are all living. I can't escape that this makes an HN user wrapped up in a culture of orthodoxy a bit uncomfortable.
But humor is insight, and brevity is the soul of wit. I saw it as commentary on the headline itself, which was ambiguous and vague. I thought it meant scientists had found an easter egg or the Enigma code hidden in DNA.
Not really. Most of the time is just the mental analogue of fart jokes.
>and brevity is the soul of wit
No, that's just a cliche.
I didn't say all insights were equal. If this was just a fart joke, I wouldn't have thought it was funny. But you can't draw a line between insight and humor, can you?
>No, that's just a cliche.
It's a cliche because it's Shakespeare. That doesn't make it less true.
RokStdy, don't be discouraged. You've done nothing wrong.
No, no they shouldn't. Not if that means "take whatever action they feel like." One should take purposeful actions which serve to help their fellow HN'er and maintain the tremendously useful tool that this website has become. They should refrain from actions which decrease the signal to noise, or otherwise decrease the utility of HN.
That's not pretentious. That's the just an explicit statement of the implicit communal understanding which made this site what it is.
There's nothing wrong with the Reddit culture of competing for top joke, but HN strives to be something different. The internet already has plenty of homes for "$nerdReference + $nostalgia == $karma++".