Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderThis is not that uncommon when optimizing code. Your program is slow so you profile it, and find out that f() takes 99% of the time. So you work a lot to optimize f(), and re-profiling shows that now f() takes 98% of the time. Doesn't seem that impressive after all the work you've put into optimizing f(), but your program is actually twice as fast :)
Not exactly the same, but I stumbled on another seemingly confusing math reality a little while back. It's probably obvious for places that measure their mileage in gallons/100 miles or kms or whatnot, but for MPG: If you could chose to increase the average fuel economy of a car, which of these would save the most fuel: 1. 10mpg -> 12mpg 2. 12mpg -> 15mpg 3. 15mpg -> 20mpg 4. 20mpg -> 30mpg 5. 30mpg -> 60mpg Of course with…
This came up in discussion about a month ago, among a list of other counterintuitive items: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28764416
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 2
- Total points
- 814
- Total comments
- 210
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-07-15 | Potato paradoxFirst breakout · Best thread | Panoramix | 559 | 132 |
| 2018-08-12 | Potato paradoxLatest 20+ point return | ZeljkoS | 232 | 77 |
| 2020-01-26 | The Potato Paradox | Reedx | 4 | 0 |
| 2020-02-20 | Potato Paradox | yogrish | 4 | 0 |
| 2020-08-18 | The Potato ParadoxHall induction | Hnaomyiph | 5 | 0 |
| 2021-10-06 | Potato Paradox | johnnyApplePRNG | 1 | 0 |
| 2021-11-13 | Potato Paradox | thanksforfish | 2 | 1 |
| 2022-11-28 | Potato Paradox | throwaway98797 | 7 | 0 |