Tell HN: Merry Christmas

1947 pointsposted 5 days ago
by basilikum

Item id: 46380168

387 Comments

Grosvenor

5 days ago

         *             ,
                      _/^\_
                     <     >
    *                 /.-.\         *
             *        `/&\`                   *
                     ,@.*;@,
                    /_o.I %_\    *
       *           (`'--:o(_@;
                  /`;--.,__ `')             *
                 ;@`o % O,*`'`&\
           *    (`'--)_@ ;o %'()\      *
                /`;--._`''--._O'@;
               /&*,()~o`;-.,_ `""`)
    *          /`,@ ;+& () o*`;-';\
              (`""--.,_0 +% @' &()\
              /-.,_    ``''--....-'`)  *
         *    /@%;o`:;'--,.__   __.'\
             ;*,&(); @ % &^;~`"`o;@();         *
             /(); o^~; & ().o@*&`;&%O\
       jgs   `"="==""==,,,.,="=="==="`
          __.----.(\-''#####---...___...-----._
        '`         \)_`"""""`
                .--' ')
              o(  )_-\
                `"""` `

wildpeaks

4 days ago

Merry Christmas !

May your glühwein be hot and your cats purring :)

Grosvenor

4 days ago

Since I might have peoples' attention for a moment (Can no longer edit my original post). Might I suggest the King William's college quiz this Christmas?

https://kwc.im/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GKP_2025_26.pdf

bornabox

4 days ago

Thanks for posting. This was fun! Towards the end it gets really hard. Merry Christmas!

OrangeMusic

4 days ago

Towards the end?! I can't answer ANY of the questions!

Spare_account

4 days ago

You're not expected to know the answers without doing research. https://britbrief.co.uk/education/schools/king-williams-coll...

>The paper carries a telling Latin motto: "Scire ubi aliquid invenire possis ea demum maxima pars eruditionis est" – "To know where you can find something is, after all, the greatest part of learning."

In the modern era it is acknowledged that people will use online search engines to find the answers but hopefully we all learn something on the way

tralarpa

4 days ago

I know the answer to 1.5. And I know the story behind 1.6, but not the name of the town... That's it :)

elestor

3 days ago

How do you even know ANY of that??

dbacar

4 days ago

These ascii art remind me the good old days of internet where we would celebrate holidays and special days sending these little marvels thru our mail client, pine under ibm aix unix terminals.

kylecazar

5 days ago

That jgs is killing me

opello

5 days ago

Just because old ASCII and ANSI art is often signed by the author, which is something fun I appreciate, see also:

https://oldcompcz.github.io/jgs/joan_stark/xmas.html#treewit...

And of course, the BBS Documentary: Artscene episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQrBbm5ZMlo&list=PL7nj3G6Jpv...

Grosvenor

4 days ago

Woah. I didn't know about that. I found it from asciiart.eu. This stuff makes me wish HN supported ANSI. We could have so much fun. (Also PRE or preformatted text would be useful).

Merry Christmas and happy new years everyone!

robobro

4 days ago

> Text after a blank line that is indented by two or more spaces is reproduced verbatim. (This is intended for code.)

        .-"```"-.
       /_\ _ _ __\
      | /{` ` `  `}
      {} {_,_,_,_,}
         )/ a  a \(
        _(<o_()_o>)_          __
       { | /_)(_\ | }       _/  \
     /`{ \        / }`\   _| `  |
    /   { '.____.' }   \ {_`-._/
   /     {_,    ,_}     \/ `-._}
  |        `{--}`    \  /    /
  |    /    {  }     | `    /
  ;    |    {  }     |\    /
   \    \   {__}     | '..'
    \_.-'}==//\\====/
    {_.-'\==\\//====\
     |   ,)  ``     |
      \__|          |
       |     __     |
       | _   /\   _ |
       |     ||     |
       \ _ _ || _ _ /
       {` ` `}{` ` `}
       {_,_,_}{_,_,_}
        |    ||    |
        /-. _||_ .-\
   jgs /    /  \    \
      |___ /    \ ___|
      `"""`      `"""`

opello

4 days ago

Glad I could share it!

https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc says:

> Text after a blank line that is indented by two or more spaces is reproduced verbatim. (This is intended for code.)

I assume that's how the top level comment posted the tree which is in a <pre><code> structure.

Grosvenor

4 days ago

But we still miss out on the great ANSI colors.

I kinda do want to go back to oldschool bbses, with cool text-mode lightbar interfaces.

kylecazar

4 days ago

Ahhh of course it's a signature. Makes total sense now.

I thought it was just a straggler.

dachris

4 days ago

Very nice, the introduction to recursion in university (which was around that time of the year) was drawing a fractal Christmas tree

OptionOfT

5 days ago

I thought this was Advent of Code! Merry Christmas!

gbraad

4 days ago

Lots of great ASCII art by jgs

e-dant

4 days ago

Thought it was obfuscated C code, then I realized it’s a tree or something

onion2k

4 days ago

Pretty sure it's a regex to match email address strings.

snarf21

4 days ago

Thank you kind stranger for a wonderful laugh on Christmas!

devsda

4 days ago

Challenge issued.

I wouldn't be surprised if someone comes up with obfuscated C code that looks like a christmas tree and prints out wishes by the end of the day/season.

Merry Christmas!

epicureanideal

4 days ago

Let's ask an LLM as a test!

Wyverald

4 days ago

Gemini 3 Pro gave some rather unimpressive answers: https://gemini.google.com/share/3cbcbe1fd64c

jb1991

4 days ago

ChatGPT did much better but I cannot paste it into this text box no matter how many times I try with different formatting to get the white space preserved. chatGPT also could not figure out how to format it for pasting here.

natch

4 days ago

Try four leading spaces?

    Test, is this monospaced?
    012345678901234567890123456789

inglor_cz

4 days ago

A screenshot and a link to the resulting JPG?

mckn1ght

4 days ago

I did recently try to use an LLM to make a twinkling christmas tree quine in the style of qlobe. It didn’t get close, maybe next year!

DrewADesign

4 days ago

Perl time

Jnr

4 days ago

Exactly, looks like Perl code to me. :)

DrewADesign

3 days ago

It’s tragic that having a language as flexible and unopinionated as Perl is admittedly terrible for novice programmers because Learning Perl is easily one of the greatest introductory programming books.

marginalia_nu

4 days ago

It's a red-green tree. Your task is to invert it in O(n) operations.

cs02rm0

4 days ago

I thought it was unobfuscated perl code. Merry Christmas ya filthy animals.

NaOH

5 days ago

I'm taking a moment to recognize once more the work that user @atdrummond (Alex Thomas Drummond) did for a couple years to help others here. I did not know him, don’t think I ever interacted with him, and I did not benefit from his generosity, but I admired his kindness. Just beautiful.

Ask HN: Who needs holiday help? (Follow up thread) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38706167 - Dec 2023 (9 comments)

Ask HN: Who needs help this holidays? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38492378 - Dec 2023 (210 comments)

Tell HN: Thank You - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34140096 - Dec 2022 (42 comments)

Tell HN: Everyone should have a holiday dinner this year - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34122118 - Dec 2022 (58 comments)

Unfortunately, Alex died a few months after his last round of holiday giving, about 1½ years ago now.

Tell HN: In Memory of Alexander Thomas Drummond - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40508725 - May 2024 (5 comments)

If you read the comments in that last thread, know that @toomuchtodo followed through last year and kept the tradition alive. Amazing and magnificent.

Ask HN: Who needs help this holidays? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42291246 - Dec 2024 (46 comments)

tailspin2019

4 days ago

I remember this awesome guy’s posts but didn’t know he’d passed.

Thank you for posting this.

whoknowsidont

3 days ago

He wasn't awesome he was a literal Nazi, through and through.

aidenn0

3 days ago

I don't know what atdrummond's political views were, and after your comment, I still don't know.

The label "literal Nazi" has become not particularly useful recently.

At best, it seems to be used to mean that the person in question agrees with one or more of:

"I think Hitler was awesome"

"We need to stop letting poor people into our country"

"Gee London was a lot better when it was whiter"

"I think we should forcibly sterilize everybody with an IQ under 85"

"I keep a copy of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion under my bed"

"I will always use he/him when referring to trans women"

--

At worst the label is applied for much more prosaic reasons.

One can be racist, or a Eugenicist, or a white supremacist, or an anti-Semite, or transphobic without being a Nazi, and those terms are all far more descriptive than "Nazi," so are more informative.

whoknowsidont

3 days ago

>I don't know what atdrummond's political views were, and after your comment, I still don't know.

You literally don't understand what the term Nazi implies or what Nazi's stood for? And you could not _literally_ take less time than it took to write this comment to research what he was apart of?

I guess you refuse to.

Because you're purposefully trying to muddy the waters :).

>One can be racist, or a Eugenicist, or a white supremacist, or an anti-Semite, or transphobic without being a Nazi,

He's all of the above. Literally, by his own words. Thanks for spelling it out!

aidenn0

3 days ago

> You literally don't understand what the term Nazi implies or what Nazi's stood for?

I'm not sure how you could read my comment and come away with that impression. I gave a partial list of the sorts of things Nazi's stood for.

> And you could not _literally_ take less time than it took to write this comment to research what he was apart of?

Honestly, I did not search for it before I wrote the comment. After you posted this, I used a few search engines to search up both "Alex Thomas Drummond" and "atdrummond."

The former turned up a single white-pages listing, the latter various people named "Drummond" most notably a basketball player. There is also a twitter/x account which I can't see posts of without an account but has an Estonian flag in his profile, which matches HN comments I later found so is probably him.

So now I'm going through his HN comments one by one, which does in fact take longer than writing the comment I wrote.

I should note that on the first page (which indeed took less time to read than writing my comment), the only thing I saw that gave off any "Nazi vibes" was this sentence, in the context of dealing with homeless addicts:

> The issue is there’s a cohort who thinks that the solutions that enable safe streets require too much sacrifice of one’s individual liberty - even if said individual abuses their freedom to harm themself and others.

But that view is not even definitively a politically right view, I'm probably reading it that way primarily because I'm looking for Nazi evidence.

On page 2 we get this thread[1] which turns into a discussion similar to what my comment was, but specifically defends two people that atdrummond claims to be respectively Jewish and philosemitic and accused of being Nazis.

At this time, I do not know who these writers are, so I have to search them. Assuming Cremieux refers to Jordan Lasker[2], who (after this comment was made) was revealed to have a Reddit pseudonym where he self-identified as a Nazi, but at the time would have been primarily known for his arguments that white people are genetically superior to black people with regards to (at least) intelligence while also rubbing shoulders with avowed eugenicists. I'm not going to spend a lot more time searching him, but I should note that, as a convert to Judaism, I could not find any evidence that he would be defined as Jewish by Nazis, who were primarily concerned with race (as they defined it) rather than religion, which certainly muddies the waters here.

Next up is Hanania[3], someone I also had not heard of before, who was definitely an avowed white supremacist and eugenicist, but claims to have changed; journalists close to him deny this, and quotes on the Wikipedia page seem to support that he is at least still fairly racist. In my (admittedly brief) searching I didn't find strong evidence for him being particularly anti- or philo-semitic, though the Wikipedia article did include a quote by him implying that America would be better run by Jewish people than black people (and maybe also hillbillies; he said "voters in Baltimore or Appalachia"). Presumably he considers at least Ashkenazim to be "sufficiently white" in his racial calculus.

While it seems likely that these two people have not specifically called for the extermination of all ethnic Jews, given that there are far more milquetoast people who have been accused of being Nazis, atdrummond defending these two people specifically makes it seem likely that he has some far-right views, but I still haven't gotten to what those are specifically.

As I was scrolling down, I almost missed this quote[4] in a collapsed reply, but saw his username:

> I am frequently called a Nazi (despite being on, and identifying as left wing, my entire life) on X simply for having the temerity to challenge certain orthodoxies.

X has made it very hard for me to view posts of users, so I don't know what he has said on X, but with what we've seen so far, I suspect he is some form of racist hereditarian. Let's keep going:

Next item[5] is the first overtly racist post from him, so looks like I may be on to something. In the context of discussing how the former confederate states seem to be a different country with different health and educational outcomes from the rest of the US:

> The outcomes are primarily due to race, not the contours of the Confederacy. Nearly all of these “red state demographic maps” are isomorphic to the percentage of African Americans within a given state/county/city.

I was skimming so I may have missed something, but the next racially tinged comment is:

> Look at the rates of homicides by firearm for White Americans and they’re within the same order of magnitude as European nations.

> This is a conversation that is verboten in the US because people assume that it means you believe that crime must be intrinsic to race, even though this statistic is actually fully compatible with the liberal orthodoxy regarding the disparate impact of government policy on American Black people.

With a later reply clarifying that he believes this difference to be not solely due to increased poverty in said demographics.

At this point, it seems clear that he believes that black people are more criminal, and he's being coy about whether he thinks it is racially intrinsic, which is arguably a tacit admission of what he thinks. I'm also done reading through his HN comments.

I strongly suspect there are much spicier comments on Twitter, but of the 3 posts that X let me see, the only relevant one was a reply saying "You don't believe correctly" to a post saying "If you believe (correctly) that immigration is a huge positive for society..."

So it seems clear to me at this point that he likely believes black people are inherently more criminal than white people, and he is opposed to immigration. This is what I could find with several times as much time and effort that went into my first post.

> Because you're purposefully trying to muddy the waters :).

I seriously am not, I didn't know what you meant by "literal Nazi" originally; your reply made it clear that you meant "Racist, Eugenicist, White Supermacist, Anti-Semite Transphobe." Please understand that calling someone a "literal Nazi" on the internet does not reliably communicate that today.

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38839386

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Lasker

3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hanania

4: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38839371

5: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38515173

andy_ppp

5 days ago

Happy Christmas everyone, I’m at 29000 feet on a flight to Hong Kong after a mini version of planes, trains and automobiles and including cancelled planes and taxis to different airports. I’m struck by honestly what a miracle it is that we can travel thousands of miles at hundreds of MPH and have okay internet access and communicate. I don’t think people quite realise how delicate all of the technology is now and how easily it could fail if we don’t all look after each other. I hope you all have a brilliant Christmas and new year!

Loughla

5 days ago

Oh man, I love flying over the Pacific Ocean (during the day). There's just so much nothing but water. It's kind of astounding.

hammock

4 days ago

Try a cruise with at least one sea day

mh-

4 days ago

Seconding this. If you're into it, it's pretty awe-inspiring to see open water all the way to the horizon, 360°.

etrautmann

4 days ago

This same experience on an ice sheet is equally surreal and fascinating.

onion2k

4 days ago

For a six foot tall person the horizon at sea level is only 3 miles away. You could get that experience on a big lake if it's more than six miles square.

NetMageSCW

4 days ago

If you think that’s the same experience I’m guessing you haven’t done it. Unfortunately my ocean voyage (from Okinawa to California) was when I was too young to remember much.

tsoukase

4 days ago

A cruise on the Pacific is felt like being a bug on a huge cup of sea water. During the night the moon feels like an arm length away.

Arn_Thor

4 days ago

Have a wonderful time! The city changes so fast; make the most of what it is right now

DetectDefect

5 days ago

Shall we showcase our trees?

        *
        |
       /.\
      /o..\
      /..O\
     /.o..o\
     /...o.\
    /..O..o.\
    ^^^[_]^^^

cluckindan

5 days ago

      o
     / \
    o   o
       / \
      o   o
         / \
        o   o
       /   / \
      o   o   o
         /   / \
        o   o   o
I knew I should have invested in that fancy self-balancing one, oh well.

basilikum

5 days ago

Ah, don't worry. If you just append to one side always and do an anti-balancing one, you get a string of lights.

  o  
   \  
    o  
     \  
      o  
       \  
        o  
         \  
          o  
           \  
            o  
             \  
              o  
               \  
                o

contravariant

5 days ago

Hey we have the same tree!

    (()(()((())((())(()())))))

thiht

4 days ago

Mine looks weird but it's decorated:

    @star
    @lights
    @balls
    def christmas_tree():
        n1 = Node()
        n2 = Node()
        n3 = Node()
        n4 = Node()
        n5 = Node()
        n6 = Node()
        n7 = Node()
        n8  = Node(n1, None)
        n9  = Node(n2, n3)
        n10 = Node(n4, n5)
        n11 = Node(n8, n9)
        n12 = Node(n6, n7)
        n13 = Node(None, n11)
        n14 = Node(None, n12)
        return Node(n13, n14)

    christmas_tree()

culi

5 days ago

Pinus newickii

encomiast

5 days ago

May you have a perfectly balanced Christmas

                 h
            _____|______
          /             \
         r               t
       /   \           /   \
      e     .         i     a
     / \   / \       / \   / \
    M   r y   C     r   s m   s

frunkad

4 days ago

hahaha, Merry Christmas to you too!

properbrew

5 days ago

                                .-^-.
                               /_/_\_\
                              /_/_/_\_\
                             /_/_/_/_\_\
                            /_/_/_/_/_\_\
                           /_/_/_o_/_/_\_\
                          /_/_o_/_/_o_/_\_\
                         /_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_\_\
                        /_/_o_/_/_o_/_/_/_\_\
                       /_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_\_\
                      /_/_/_o_/_/_o_/_/_o_/_\_\
                     /_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_\_\
                    /_/_o_/_/_o_/_/_o_/_/_o_/_\_\
                   /_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_\_\
                 /_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_\_\
                /_/_o_/_/_o_/_/_o_/_/_o_/_/_o_/_/_\_\
              /_/_/_/Merry Christmas HackerNews__/_/\_\
             /_/_o_/_/_o_/_/_o_/_/_o_/_/_o_/_/_o_/_/_\_\
            /_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_\_\
                           |||||||||||||||
                           |||||||||||||||
                           |||||||||||||||
                           |||||||||||||||
                          _|||||||||||||||_

qingcharles

4 days ago

               DOOM BSP (XMAS) TREE :p

                     . * .
                    (IDKFA)
                  ---\ | /---
                      \|/
                  ( ROOT NODE )
                  ( Partition )
                 /`--...___...-`\
                /                \
               /                  \
        o--( Node 1 )--o      o--( Node 2 )--o
          /  Front   \          /   Back   \
         /      |     \        /      |     \
        /       o      \      /       o      \
   [SUBSECTOR]    ( Node 3 )     [SUBSECTOR]
   | (Leaf A)|    /        \     | (Leaf B)|
   |_________|   /          \    |_________|
     [SEGS]     /            \     [SEGS]
    ( Gift ) [SUBSECTOR]  [SUBSECTOR] ( Gift )
             | (Leaf C)|  | (Leaf D)|
             |_________|  |_________|
               [SEGS]       [SEGS]

necovek

4 days ago

Just you mentioning Doom makes me wonder how fast will we get someone to run Doom on individually controlled Christmas LEDs on a Christmas tree.

Flere-Imsaho

4 days ago

Love the cheat code at the top

dxdm

4 days ago

idkfa iddqd idspispopd

This is etched into my mind.

cluckindan

4 days ago

IDKFA = id kicks f*king ass

IDDQD = id delta quit delta (apparently some kind of inside joke)

IDSPISPOPD = id smashing pumpkins into small piles of putrid debris

sallveburrpi

5 days ago

           @
          ***
         *****
        *******
       *********
      ***********
     *************
    ***************
           |
           |
Best I can do ;/

LeoPanthera

5 days ago

I love your player character tree topper.

etothet

5 days ago

           *       
          /^\ 
         /* *\
        /+@o* \
       /o*+*o+*\
      /* @+*o@+*\
     /+*o*+@*o*+*\
    /@o+*o@+*o+@o*\
   /*+@o*+@*o+*o@+*\
  /o*+@o*+@o*+@o*+o*\
 /@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@\
          |||
          |||

user_7832

4 days ago

That's the first tree that rendered properly on my mobile, Merey Christmas and good job! Also nice bottom layer of ampersands, looks really festive for some reason!

keepamovin

4 days ago

  `        _\/_          .
     -      /\
            /|\     `
  .   /    /*|O\.        .
          /*/|\*\
         /X/O|*\X\
        /*/X/|\X\*\   .
       /O/*/X|*\O\X\
      /*/O/X/|\X\O\*\
      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
            |X|
            |X|
     Merry Christmas!
merry Christmas to all you people out there :)

user_7832

4 days ago

Merry Christmas! Nice touch with the snow, makes for a cosy and homely atmosphere! (It's 25⁰C here. Please send help >.<)

gerdesj

5 days ago

Lovely idea but please spare a thought for people using a screen reader! Imagine having ASCII art spelt out to you character by character, line by line.

This really is a job for a LLM.

With apologies to screen reader users: "space tab space space asterisk new line space space tab space new line space space space tab pipe new line ... forward slash o full stop full stop backslash ..."

phyalow

5 days ago

                    *
                   /|\
                 [ROOT]
                n=25000
              /    |    \
           [N]    [I]    [C]
          .33    .51    .94  <-- UCB1 winner
           |      |    /   \
         [OH]   [MEH] [E]   [E]
         coal   socks NICE  NICE
           |             \    \
          :/              :)   :)

       MCTS: Monte Carlo Tree Santa

   "in the limit, all children converge 
        to the nice list" - S. Claus
Merry Xmas Nerds!

KellyCriterion

4 days ago

▲ ▲▲▲ ▲▲▲▲▲ ▲▲▲▲▲▲▲ ▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲ ▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲

Hell - mine one is crashed! Claude didnt work properly :-D

racl101

4 days ago

renderTree(type='Christmas')

koito17

5 days ago

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Love seeing the custom HN theme every year. Sometimes after Christmas, I avoid refreshing an HN tab, so I get to see the theme just a little bit longer :)

This year is a bit special to me. I recently moved countries for a new job, but I moved a bit too soon. Now I am spending the holiday season alone for the first time in my life. Learned a lot of lessons the hard way over the past week.

GaryBluto

5 days ago

> Sometimes after Christmas, I avoid refreshing an HN tab, so I get to see the theme just a little bit longer :)

There's always browser extensions/scripts.

freedomben

5 days ago

Indeed, I needed it longer than one day so wrote myself an extension. HN didn't seem to care but I still love it :-)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46266496

https://github.com/FreedomBen/hacker-news-christmas-colors-b...

dang

5 days ago

Wow, perhaps my "too early" assessment was wrong?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46379541

freedomben

4 days ago

Indeed, I didn't notice on desktop (due to my browser extension) but when I saw it on mobile at around 2 or 3 PM Mountain Time I was thrilled!

Thanks for continuing such an awesome tradition :-D

koito17

5 days ago

Yeah, I'm aware of extensions like Stylus and use it on a few sites. But my brain is irrational and doesn't treat it the same as having a snapshot of HN during Christmas.

coffeemug

5 days ago

Where did you move from (and to)?

koito17

5 days ago

United States to Japan.

I was a bit eager to start work after three months of waiting for the HSP 1b visa. Tried to keep myself busy with side projects, and got quite far with embedded Rust. But the lack of a "regular schedule" from a job was making me eager to start "proper work" again.

So far, it has been a mixed bag of trade-offs. Made it in time for various events, got to see a few friends for the first time in a while, etc. However, nothing beats the comfort and security of one's parents home, especially during the holiday season.

Probably obvious to everybody, but seriously do not schedule a move in December. If it is feasible, spend the time to make memories with your family and loved ones.

coffeemug

5 days ago

> nothing beats the comfort and security of one's parents home, especially during the holiday season.

A bit morbid, but reminds me of this passage by John Quincy Adams:

> Everything about the house is the same. I was not fully sensible of the change till I entered his bedchamber [...] That moment was inexpressibly painful, and struck me as if it had been an arrow to my heart. My father and mother have departed. The charm which has always made this house to me an abode of enchantment is dissolved; and yet my attachment to it, and to the whole region around, is stronger than I ever felt it before.

Hope you get to spend the next Christmas with your family!

gavide

5 days ago

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⠀⠀⡰⡇⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠰⢾⠇⠨⡦⠀⠂⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡀⠀⢈⣹⠜⠻⢾⠃⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠁⢠⣿⡵⠾⣻⣶⠿⠦⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⠀⢀⣠⣮⣦⡶⠻⠛⢶⣄⡀⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣽⠏⠁⣠⣂⣦⣈⣝⣦⣄⠀⠈⠁⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠁⣠⣾⣵⣾⣾⠟⡙⠟⠿⣍⡉⠀⠀⠆⠀⠀ ⠀⠰⠀⠀⠄⣠⣶⣾⣭⡶⠟⠻⣶⡰⣜⣳⣦⣄⠀⡀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⢀⣠⣴⣿⣋⡴⣪⠎⣄⡙⠻⠿⣯⣉⠉⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠂⠀⢀⣉⡭⢿⡛⣛⣵⠎⠀⠙⢾⣶⣦⣭⣷⣦⠐⠀ ⠀⠀⢈⣙⣿⡿⠿⠟⣋⢅⡄⡄⡐⣄⢤⣉⠷⢦⣄⣀⠠ ⠐⠾⠿⢽⣷⡶⠶⡿⣓⣭⣾⣿⢷⣬⣓⢿⠿⠿⣯⣉⣁ ⠀⠀⠀⠉⠉⠉⠛⠛⠉⢀⣿⢿⡀⠙⠋⠓⠿⠿⠏⠉⠉ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠠⠤⠶⠾⢿⡯⠷⠶⠤⠄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Merry Christmas, HN!

eth0up

4 days ago

I love all the trees but this is my favorite.

Thanks

Merry Christmas!

jimbobthrowawy

4 days ago

Did you forget to double space between the lines, or put leading spaces?

Also, I had to turn off firefox's enhanced tracking protection for the font to load. Before that it was unicode tofu.

brulard

5 days ago

not sure what i'm looking at here...

kmoser

5 days ago

If you're viewing on a desktop, shrink the browser until each line stacks below the previous one, creating a tree.

farmerbb

5 days ago

It shows up as a Christmas tree for me on my phone in portrait mode. In landscape mode the braille is messed up.

MobiusHorizons

5 days ago

I’m assuming they fixed the formatting since you posted, but it’s a Christmas tree in text art using braille characters.

Side note: I assume you can’t call it ASCII art if it uses non-ASCII characters, but Unicode art doesn’t have the same ring.

rationalist

5 days ago

A Christmas tree through the snow?

gerdesj

5 days ago

Fucked up Braille?

tekacs

5 days ago

Fun seeing HN restart to switch to the Christmas theme, in three steps:

https://share.cleanshot.com/vJZv6k03 (restarting the server)

https://share.cleanshot.com/qFyM347P (online but temporarily readonly)

https://share.cleanshot.com/kW8kY7mp (back online!)

dang

5 days ago

You must have grabbed that first one awfully quickly!

throwup238

4 days ago

You’d have more luck asking for world peace.

The_President

4 days ago

Dear Santa, for Christmas can we get a prefers-color-scheme: dark mode for HN, thank you and Merry Christmas

andersa

5 days ago

So what's the christmas theme? Unless I'm blind, it looks the same as always, except the header color seems to have changed... slightly?

ojbyrne

5 days ago

Perhaps you've looked at the site so much that you're blind to the numbers at the start of each item.

BubbleRings

5 days ago

No numbers in Chrome on iPhone, fyi.

ojbyrne

5 days ago

I can’t tell if you’re joking, because I’m looking at the site on chrome on iPhone and there’s numbers.

jaggederest

5 days ago

The numbers next to the submissions are red/green

Aspie96

5 days ago

Japan changed its flag for Christmas…

brcmthrowaway

5 days ago

What container is this running in?

dang

5 days ago

FreeBSD

president_zippy

5 days ago

Color me confused, but what do containers add to FreeBSD beyond jails? Jails have their own IP addresses and root filesystem, plus they use the host OS's version of libc and OpenSSL/LibreSSL and all the other core utils.

Is it the convenience utilities for building and running container images?

dang

5 days ago

I was joking. There is no container. (We don't use jails either.)

president_zippy

4 days ago

But alas, FreeBSD does support OCI container images! It supports Podman and has an OCI-compliant runtime:

https://freebsdfoundation.org/blog/oci-containers-on-freebsd...

However, I still can't pinpoint what the value proposition is compared to using jails. Is there anybody around here able and willing to shed some light? I know I didn't use Cunningham's Law to start the conversation like a clever netizen but maybe, just this once, a good faith response to a good faith question is possible.

jagged-chisel

5 days ago

Restart?!

ouch

basilikum

5 days ago

HN is a pretty simple, efficient monolithic web application. Some updates might need a restart. It's OK for some web requests to fail during that time. HN isn't life critical with sixtuple nine uptime requirements.

sallveburrpi

5 days ago

Tbh like 99% of web apps aren’t critical - most of them are for buying something or providing infrastructure to make it easier to buy something anyway. It’s fine if your online shop is down for a few minutes (of course the business won’t see it like that but it’s true)

basilikum

5 days ago

A sales site being down might lose you a sale. But the simplicity might save you so muh more than that loses you. And often the complexion of high availability infrastructure results in more downtime than it prevents.

For stuff like HN, I like the peek behind the scenes it provides. It's all just software written by some humans and way too often people take themselves and their shitty software way too serious.

lomase

5 days ago

Steam, +130 million users, biggest gamming store, multi billion dolar company, is offline every week for a few minutes.

99.999999 is so overated.

uyzstvqs

5 days ago

It could probably be done with a simple if statement, but I'm guessing that dang enjoys the tradition of doing it manually every year.

kelnos

5 days ago

I feel like this obsession with zero downtime has gotten a bit silly. Sure, for some things it's damn near required (though I imagine that's fewer things than most people think), but it 100% does not matter even a little bit if HN is unavailable for 10 seconds or so.

jagged-chisel

a day ago

Everyone went right for “downtime” - no, that’s not an issue. I would have expected a configuration change, which wouldn’t require a restart but might indeed result in downtime.

Or even a configuration change that some control system notices and does restart the service.

It’s the manual, hands-on connotation (maybe only in my mind) of telling someone a restart is involved. Automate this stuff - don’t want the code in the server all year? Fine, have a process rebuild and relaunch on a schedule that makes sense. Might have downtime, but definitely have less hands-on.

dang

5 days ago

I'd rather restart once (ok, twice) a year than keep that code around in production.

It only affects traffic for about 10 seconds.

ellis0n

4 days ago

Three years ago I found myself in a difficult situation and at Christmas I asked HN for help. Several people sent me invitations and work appeared right away, so I went off to pay my bills. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34121905

My situation was very tough and the job was tough too, so I wasn’t able to reply to everyone by email right away, circumstances worked out that way.

Now things have improved and I want to say a big thank you to everyone who came to help, the HN community, Dang and the team for the support.

Merry Christmas and I wish humanity to survive in the age of AI!

PS: Your invaluable support made it possible to improve my startup https://acpul.org and I have created an open letter for those who would like to join in developing the best programming environment in the world: https://www.acpul.org/blog/Open-Letter

jackdecker

5 days ago

Merry Christmas HN!

        _===_
       /     \
      | () () |
      |   >   |
      |  ___  |
       \_____/
         |||
        _|||_
       /     \
      |       |
      |       |
       \_____/
         |||
        _|||_
       /     \
      /       \
     |         |
     |         |
      \_______/
      ||     ||
      ||     ||
     _||_   _||_
    |    | |    |

doug_durham

4 days ago

Your snowman has legs!

Kye

4 days ago

That's so he can chase his dreams.

Minor49er

4 days ago

Well yeah. This snowman kicks butt!

PureSin

5 days ago

Merry Christmas and happy new year. It's been a tough year with stress about work, immigration, family. This little corner of the internet always gives me joy, hope, and inspiration to work for a better, kinder world.

Hope everyone enjoy the break and start 2026 with energy to keep improving yourself and the world.

keyboardJones

4 days ago

Just wanted to say this resonated. Thanks for the kind words, and here’s to 2026!

dzink

5 days ago

May everyone here discover more and better ways to spread the joy of giving and doing good.

              *
             /_\
            / o \
           /  *  \
          / o   o \
         /  . * .  \
        / o  * *  o \
       /  . * o * .  \
      / o  * * * *  o \
     /  . * o * o * .  \
    / o  * * * * * *  o \
   /______________________\
            |||||| 
            |||||| 
            ||||||

JKCalhoun

5 days ago

The ol' off-by-one error.

Merry Christmat!

jakebasile

4 days ago

Merry Christmas to you, too, and to all that read this.

A relevant verse about a sometimes stressful day:

Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.

- Matthew 6:34

BewareTheYiga

5 days ago

             *
            /*\
           /***\
          /*****\
         /*******\
        /*********\
       /***  *  ***\
      /*************\
     /***  *  *  ****\
    /*****************\
   /***  *  *  *  *****\
  /*********************\
 /********** *** ********\
            |||
            |||
            |||
Merry Christmas, HN

jherdman

5 days ago

Merry Christmas, friends. And a special cheers to everyone that makes this community possible. It’s one of the last bastions of all that is good about this internet.

merryxmas

5 days ago

             Ⓜerry    
                           
           ©hr®istmas ‼ ⁉

           ⭕
          ↙▫⬇↘
         ↙▫↙⬇↘↘
        ↙↙▫↙⬇↘▫↘↘
        ↙▫↙↙⬇↘↘▫↘↘
      ↙↙↙▫↙↙⬇↘▫↘↘↘↘
      ♟♨⬛#⃣#⃣♨♟
          ◽◾◽
          〰㊗〰
#⃣ #⃣ #⃣ ™ ℹ ↔ ↕ ↖ ↗ ↘ ↙ ↩ ↪ ⌚ ⌛ ▪ ▫ ▶ ◀ ◻ ◼ ◽ ◾ ♠ ♣ ♥ ♦ ♨ ⤴ ⤵ ⬅ ⬆ ⬇ ⬛ ⬜ ⭕ 〰 〽 ㊗ ㊙ ⏏ 🟰 ‼ ⁉ 〰 ⭕ 〽 © ® ™ *⃣ 0⃣ 1⃣ 2⃣ 3⃣ 4⃣ 5⃣ 6⃣ 7⃣ 8⃣ 9⃣ ℹ Ⓜ ㊗ ㊙ 󠁧󠁢󠁥 ♨ ♟ ⌨

dang

4 days ago

Not gonna filter your emojis on Christmas but I'm impressed how many of our restrictions you routed around :)

GarnetFloride

4 days ago

Merry Christmas, This has been a wild one. On the way to my sister's house we got a call from her sister saying their dad needs to go into an assisted living place because his pneumonia is not getting better and needs 24/7 care. But this will cut off the income my wife was bring in for caring for him.

As the call is on our car throws a red light: Transmission malfunction: Service now. We take the next exit and happen to find a Big O Tire place which is where we get most of our car work done. The transmission is seized, but it's Christmas Eve and no one is open to get an estimate on a replacement. But that's okay a couple of cousins are able to pick us up to get to the party.

We get home and find big pile of presents on our doorstep but we find they are addressed to names we don't know. So we bring them in for safekeeping. Today I look around the apartment building and finding one with a dollhouse on the balcony give a knock but its the wrong door but they knew the family which was downstairs so the right family got the presents finally.

Now cinnamon rolls are baking for breakfast and starting dinner prep soon.

But somehow I have to figure out if I should replace the transmission on a 13 year old car which needs $4500 in suspension work too or replace the whole vehicle.

And find a way to make more money since the part-time job I have right now to open up time for caregiving won't be enough for all this, and it looks like caregiving won't be necessary for much longer anyway.

rconti

4 days ago

Hope things improve for you, and you have a Merry Christmas in spite of it all.

For what it's worth, it strikes me as very unlikely that the transmission is going to be less than an additional $4500. But you never know, it could be a simple fault - no sense in trying to make mental decisions before you know the math involved.

rhubarbtree

3 days ago

Hang in there. This is a difficult period of life, went through something similar not long back. Be sure to take care of yourself and have some mental “time off” this week.

blast

4 days ago

That's a bittersweet mix of troubles and sweetness. I hope the troubles sort out without too much heartache, and that 2026 brings many good things.

shredprez

5 days ago

Merry Christmas, everyone! Continually grateful for this community: stumbling into it as a teenager changed my life and I never get tired of spinning out about new tech big and small with the folks here. Stay safe, everybody

_DeadFred_

5 days ago

My first Christmas with mom gone was really tough. Stuck alone during COVID in 2021 in a really bad place. I couldn't sleep. And I happened to turn on the radio in the middle of the night and there was an Amy Grant interview. I almost turned it off, oh no, christian stuff I thought. But she talked about her first Christmas without her mom. Then they played her song about it. If I had been 5 minutes more trying to sleep, or given up on sleep 5 minutes earlier, I would have missed that.

Anyways, in case anyone needs to stumble upon something similar, I couldn't find something so perfect but...

hearing it now it's not as amazing as it was that night I needed to not be alone in grief, but here it is:

https://www.npr.org/2016/12/25/506715971/amy-grant-on-faith-...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LOqLV6Om4A

Merry Christmas to you!

ProofHouse

5 days ago

God bless you. Wishing you joy.

jll29

4 days ago

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Spread the love, please - try to give everyone around you a metaphorical "▲" (upvote), in HN-speak, to make this world a better place.

  The Birth of Jesus

  [Luke 2] In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to their own town to register [in tax ledgers].

  -- https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%202&version=NIV

coffeemug

5 days ago

Hope everyone has a healthy, rewarding and prosperous year. Special thanks to @dang and team for keeping this community a great place everyone wants to come back to. I love coming back here every day.

Merry Christmas to all!

stevenfoster

4 days ago

I became a parent of two this year and my oldest is now 3 years old. One of the greatest things in life has to be a newborn baby. And more than ever for me, it makes sense that the greatest thing would be if God came as a newborn baby.

¡Feliz Navidad!

BLKNSLVR

4 days ago

Enjoy the journey, make the most of as much of it as possible. The present can feel as if it moves very slowly, but the future arrives incredibly quickly. My two are 18 and 16 and it feels like only five minutes has passed (I'm sure this is how you feel about the last 3 years). I miss their unrestricted toddler personalities, but I'm also incredibly happy and proud of who they've both become as, essentially, adults now.

cryptonector

4 days ago

Time flies by way too fast. But if you did good you'll get upgraded to grandparent!

pdevr

5 days ago

Merry Christmas to everyone.

Being a non-Christian and it being Christmas time, I am sharing one verse from the New Testament that is, in my opinion, useful - or at the very least, insightful - to anyone, regardless of religion.

Luke 16:10: He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much.

jslpc

5 days ago

I'd consider myself more spiritual rather than religious, but do pray to a god of my understanding. Just wanted to say thanks for sharing this, I haven't actually read the whole Bible but, as the other reply states, I'm sure there are so many little nuggets like this in there that many ignore.

ndsipa_pomu

4 days ago

That's like how you can evaluate someone's character by whether they return supermarket trolleys when they're done with them

rhubarbtree

3 days ago

See also: dropping unwashed spoons in a communal sink

NBJack

4 days ago

Truth. You can evaluate a lot about someone from the details they give attention to, and what they ignore. It's not a hard and fast rule, but helpful in determining who you can trust with work, important things in your life (including your self), etc.

appguy

4 days ago

Wonderful verse, it’s so true, thanks for sharing

pmcginn

5 days ago

Thank you for sharing this one! It's from a beautiful parable found only in Luke's gospel, from which only "no slave can serve two masters" seems to have entered the popular lexicon. Your quote, or the closing line "you cannot serve God and wealth", better speak to the spirit of the passage.

For anyone interested in approaching the Bible this season, perhaps as part of a New Year's resolution, there are many wonderful free and paid resources to do so. It's easy to get bogged down in a comparison of translations and tools, or to ambitiously pick a Bible in a Year reading plan and get waylaid in the pentateuch. Instead, I'd recommend starting with the Berean Standard Bible (a modern, public domain translation with good footnotes) and Mark (Matthew is my favorite, but it starts with a genealogy and requires some Old Testament knowledge to fully enjoy.)

Here's a link: https://biblehub.com/bsb/mark/1.htm

jimnotgym

5 days ago

Merry Christmas everyone. If you are not Christian, then seasons greetings, hope you got the day off anyway!

timenotwasted

5 days ago

            *
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         /_____\
        /_______\
       /_________\
      /___________\
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    /_______________\
           |||
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Merry Christmas!

jeffrallen

4 days ago

Due to illness, I've stayed home while my whole family goes to be with the grandparents. I will join them later today, with a mask.

It is strange and sad to be alone this morning.

If you are in the same situation, know that you are not alone: I'm thinking of you.

Merry Christmas.

devgoth

5 days ago

merry christmas everyone! HN has been the first site i open up every morning with a cup of tea for the past 10 years or so. Cheers to a great community of builders & thinkers.

snowless

4 days ago

Merry Christmas, everyone! Treasure these moments you get with those you care about it. Time is our most valuable asset.

KellyCriterion

4 days ago

Merry Christmas, dear HN Community!

Being super-lonely this year, I hope all of you are much better off than me - this year contained some catastrophic external events in my life, which led to permanent change on some "layers" of my live (not only material, but also in psy etc.)

I hope the next year will bring the luck to re-align some things and bring them backs on the track, otherwise next year I will write the same post and add that Im in huge (final) trouble...

Enjoy the time with your family if they are near to you!

dxdm

4 days ago

Merry Christmas to you. You are not entirely alone, in the sense that other people have gone through loss and hardship and have come out of it eventually, better, happier, and stronger. Also, there are strangers like me who wish you well. I hope that things will work out for you soon. For now, here's a warm greeting and a smile for you. :)

KellyCriterion

4 days ago

THANK you for your words! Its tough these days, really. Hope you have some days with your family and friends!

rhubarbtree

3 days ago

This too shall pass. The seasons of life come and go, find the small joys during the hardest times.

lastdong

5 days ago

Merry Christmas! HN Christmas theme is always great to see

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robofanatic

5 days ago

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marnett

5 days ago

Merry Christmas hackernews community! What a great forum. Peace on Earth.

rconti

4 days ago

A couple of years ago in early December, we took a trip to Berlin and Strasbourg, and spent our time visiting many Christmas markets. It was a really enjoyable trip.

Yes, it was very cold, which is not deal when you're spending 12 hours a day outside (hovering around freezing the entire trip, a small amount of snow a few days). Yes, it gets dark early and the days are short -- but that's true back at home in California too. We do share a hemisphere, after all. And yes, after awhile, the markets all do tend to look the same. But I find it nice to travel, and I love traveling in the off-season.

Yes, you can travel at the same time everyone else wants to travel, with long days, long lines, and large prices. But everywhere you go has traditions year round, and the weather and lifestyle changes with the seasons. Every place and every time of year has things worth seeing and experiencing.

Or you could travel to the opposite hemisphere when the days are short back home, that's fun too :)

duckkg5

5 days ago

Merry Christmas to one of the last great internet communities that I actually like to interact with

danousna

4 days ago

Merry Christmas everyone, from France.

This not so little corner of the internet keeps delivering year after year, thank you all for the quality of the submissions and discussions!

tracker1

3 days ago

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shortcord

5 days ago

Luke 2:14

    [14] “Glory to God in the highest,
        and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

Exoristos

4 days ago

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."

squigz

4 days ago

Reading some of the translations for the quoted verse, it's really interesting how so many different sentiments can be expressed with very little changes of words/phrasing.

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will.”

https://biblehub.com/luke/2-14.htm

sapphicsnail

4 days ago

There are 2 competing textual varients in the Greek sources. The word for "good will" (eudokia) shows up in the nominative and the genitive. If it's genitive it modifies humankind if it's nominative it's parallel to the first half of the sentence meaning, in Heaven let there be glory to God, on Earth let there be good will to humankind.

That was fun! I read that verse earlier today and I didn't know about the version with genitive case.

shortcord

4 days ago

I think I do prefer the KJV here. Has the classic familiarity.

The ESV is the translation I have used since it came out for personal reading and study, though.

flowinghorse

5 days ago

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ycombinatornews

4 days ago

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!

Thank you HN and HN community for sharing the most interesting places of internet, ideas, discussions and points of views. Learned a lot and hope to learn more.

lschueller

5 days ago

Merry Christmas to the awesome hn community!

peterspath

5 days ago

Merry Christmas!

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

- Luke 2:10-11

russellbeattie

4 days ago

Linus van Pelt has entered the chat.

Fun tidbit: The Charlie Brown Christmas animators had Linus drop his security blanket when he said, "fear not".

(I'm an atheist, but as an official GenXer™, I could almost recite this speech from memory.)

knaik94

4 days ago

Merry christmas y'all and happy holidays. I can't put in to words how much I appreciate the culture on HN and the conversations I've been a part of. It's the only social media site where I enjoy reading my historical messages, I can see exactly how much I have grown and learned. I am thankful for the moderation and self-moderation.

I will continuing trying to give back in a small way, what the HN community has given me. Happy holidays.

willmadden

4 days ago

            *
           ***
            *
          /***\
         /*@***\
        /*******\
       /**@******\
      /***********\
     /**********@**\
    /***************\
   /*****@***********\
  /*******************\
 /***************@*****\
           |||
           |||
           |||

 ===[ MERRY * CHRISTMAS ]===

unangst

5 days ago

I’m exceedingly thankful for this site. I turn here (as many of us do) for a quick escape, tech news catch-up, deep dive and inspiration. Proceed and be bold in 2026.

gordon_freeman

4 days ago

Folks who have some extra time this Christmas, do check out the tv show Pluribus on Apple TV. It’s not your typical action packed sci-fi show but is very slow burning, philosophical kind of show which I found very smart.

Turns out my best 2 tv shows of last couple of years are on Apple TV: Severance and Pluribus

heyyfurqan

4 days ago

thanks for the recommendation

rhubarbtree

3 days ago

Jumping on to agree with Severance and make a few more.

Silicon Valley - for me the funniest (and painful to watch, sometimes) to show. Schitt’s Creek - heart warming, wonderfully written, very funny bite size episodes perfect for cosy Christmas times.

anonym29

5 days ago

Merry Christmas!

  ▲
  ▲▲
did I do it right?

russellbeattie

4 days ago

We Californians are still a few hours away from Christmas, but hope you people living in the future are having a merry holiday!

koakuma-chan

5 days ago

I got scared when I refreshed and HN turned red

nrhrjrjrjtntbt

5 days ago

Easy mistake. HN's AI apocolyose color is a slightly darker hue.

arthurcolle

4 days ago

Merry Christmas everyone. It was a pleasure interacting with you all this year and I hope for many more.

mintflow

5 days ago

Just noticed that color of the HN top bar is more red which I never noticed in previous years.

Merry Christmas to everyone.

dang

5 days ago

(note the red and green story numbers as well)

(this is an old pg tradition btw)

DeathArrow

4 days ago

I hope you celebrate with your loved ones and have joy and warmth in your hearts. Last but not least, let's not forget those who are suffering, sick, or elderly, and let's do a good deed when we have the opportunity.

Merry Christmas to all!

pfortuny

4 days ago

Happy Christmas, may we all keep this forum peaceful (but nonetheless compelling)!

Thanks to @dang!

b8

4 days ago

Merry Christmas y'all. Glad to spend time with the fam bam and to spend some time resting. Also I'm getting my back nerves burned finally after trying to get a pain remediation surgery for a long time. Better late than never.

s5300

4 days ago

>> Also I'm getting my back nerves burned finally after trying to get a pain remediation surgery for a long time. Better late than never.

Best of luck with this. Back (and neck) pain really, truly sucks. Very under-treated in the U.S. as well. IME, completely stifles the ability to enter a “flow” state of cognitive function.

altuzar

5 days ago

Merry Christmas! This great community has changed my life so many times. Let’s go for more!

anthonyIPH

5 days ago

This is a good time to start your own tradition, or continue one that you find worthwhile.

randycupertino

5 days ago

Here's to a happy and healthy 2026!

Thanks HN for all the thoughtful comments and interesting articles.

ProofHouse

5 days ago

I am alone. I haven't seen my family in many, many years for reasons that I don't want to get into. I am a founder. I check Hacker News every day and have learned an immense amount from all the commenters, articles, and discussions over the years. I thank you all for that. I am truly grateful.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas full of joy, and I hope you can all appreciate, share, and express love for those around you, be it family, friends, or strangers on the internet. We are all very lucky to be part of the HN site and community. I have been here for about 15 years (at least that is what it feels like) with my other accounts that I don't want to dox.

Glory to God. For believers in Jesus, may the light of Christ guide you as it does me in difficult times. Wishing you all His peace and joy.

AlmostCosmo79

4 days ago

Merry Christmas, friend! I am sorry to hear about your family situation and that you are alone. If it is any comfort, know that I, and I'm sure others, are thinking of you. Thank you for your reminder to rest in the Light of the World.

kaeland

4 days ago

Merry Christmas to you as well!

jeanlucas

5 days ago

Merry Christmas, Feliz Natal.

That reminds me I have to update my HN theme to have the Christmas theme

deadbabe

4 days ago

Christmas is always a very hard time of year for some people, if you are struggling, just know you are not forgotten and I hope you can still have yourself a Merry little Christmas time. <3

judah

5 days ago

Merry Christmas!

"An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”"

-Luke 2

crims0n

5 days ago

Merry Christmas friends! I have a C64 Ultimate under the tree this year so looking to have a bit of retro fun that would make the HN community proud (after assembling all the kids stuff, of course).

albertobarrago

4 days ago

Buon Natale a tutti, che la coscienza ci pervada!

WhereIsTheTruth

4 days ago

You'd think techies would be immune to religion, but then you realize that most of the people here are web devs, so that makes sense

ksec

4 days ago

Merry Christmas, I am glad HN is celebrating it.

kehvyn

5 days ago

Merry Christmas everyone! My friends and family are on two different continents so it's very quiet this year.

I hope everyone has a wonderful, relaxing, and joyous time.

bossyTeacher

5 days ago

eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJtZXNzYWdlIjoiTWVycnkgQ2hyaXN0bWFzIiwidG8iOiJIYWNrZXIgTmV3cyJ9.Lg_fp5WWKGLpbxI_YbRY-CfQiXe-gLXzDFMiChkXzY0

pdevr

5 days ago

Just in case anyone does not know, that is a Base64URL-encoded string. Used by JWT.

tory

5 days ago

Merry Christmas :)

arjonagelhout

5 days ago

Merry Christmas!

Here’s a quad tree:

11

11

—

0110

0110

1111

0110

—

00000000

00011000

00011000

00111100

01111110

11111111

00011000

00011000

Insanity

5 days ago

Merry Christmas HN! Whether you celebrate it or not, hope you get some time off to spend with friends and/or family!

chrisfusillo

5 days ago

Merry Christmas from a long time HN lurker!

sombragris

4 days ago

Thanks! Merry Christmas for OP and all of you, too. Have a holiday season full of blessings!

block_dagger

4 days ago

Happy Ruby 4.0 day! Thanks Matz et al.

pmdr

4 days ago

The main reason I look forward to opening HN on Christmas!

albertobarrago

4 days ago

Buon Natale a tutti! Che la coscienza pervada tutti i presenti in questo ottante ♥

qntmfred

5 days ago

and on earth peace, good will toward men

decibe1

4 days ago

Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

glitchc

4 days ago

Merry Christmas to all! Hope your holidays are filled with cheer and the warmth of your loved ones.

medbar

5 days ago

Merry Christmas HN! Hope you're all enjoying quality time with loved ones (and good food!)

michaelsbradley

5 days ago

Merry Christmas

Christus natus est

O Χριστός γεννιέται

Христос раждается

המשיח נולד

ابن الله يولد اليوم

doug_durham

4 days ago

Merry Christmas fellow HN'ers. I hope that 2026 is more sane with less drama.

ashtonshears

5 days ago

Thanks all for your contributions to positive chats on this site — have a joy filled holiday

keyboardJones

4 days ago

Merry Christmas, HN! Thanks for being one of the bright spots in my/the internet.

bix6

5 days ago

Merry Christmas everyone!

Favorite Christmas movie?

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS

4 days ago

There are so many. Muppet Christmas Carol, of course. Emmett Otter's Jugband Christmas is a classic. White Christmas, a bit cliché but I love it. Bishop's Wife (with Carey Grant) is also a classic. Home Alone for the funny.

And probably a hundred others.

0xbadcafebee

4 days ago

Happy Belated Festivus. May you win a feat of strength, and air many grievances.

busymom0

5 days ago

Merry Christmas Hacker News!!!

homeonthemtn

4 days ago

Just got a bucket list item out of that article, so thank you for that

Merry Christmas!

vjay15

4 days ago

Merry Christmas everybody may this day bring you joy and happiness :)

nullable_bool

5 days ago

Merry x-mas. We all deserve love and happiness. Be kind to your neighboor.

sandworm101

4 days ago

And a special hello to those of us at work this morning!

tehlike

5 days ago

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone has wonderful time with family.

LargoLasskhyfv

5 days ago

Sti-hilläh Na-hacht, hei-li-gäh Na-hacht.

Wir Frässähn bis die Schwarte kracht!

theophrastus

4 days ago

Merry Christmas!! you gentle nerds you! Peace to us all.

throwpoaster

4 days ago

Merry Christmas, HN. Thanks for a lovely daily read!

xandrius

5 days ago

"A Spaceman Came Travelling" - Chris de Burgh

robch

4 days ago

Merry Christmas to all or whatever you celebrate!

agentifysh

5 days ago

Merry Christmas y'all keep promptin'

w111

4 days ago

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

nervysnail

5 days ago

I was surprised to see HN change colour.

calebm

5 days ago

Happy Christmas, and Merry New Year!

ascold

4 days ago

Merry Christmas from Montreal!

mrwaffle

4 days ago

I hope you all have a nice day!

hireclay

4 days ago

Merry Christmas everyone! <3

sebnun

4 days ago

Merry Christmas to everyone.

mjh2539

4 days ago

Tidings and good cheer to all.

cniebla

5 days ago

Merry Christmas! Feliz Navidad!

imchillyb

5 days ago

Twas brillig, and Santas toes were freezing in the sleigh.

All icey were the Reindeer hooves, moody and unlikely they were to play.

Then Christmas Eve did come about and, Santa, mounted slay he did.

Present bag taken firm in hand, one for each and every kid.

Down-down-down chimney stacks around each and every town.

Milk and cookies, warmth and hearth.

Every present for every home. Boys and girls light and dark.

Good or bad, used to matter. But Santa had a change of heart.

We all mess up sometimes. And, sometimes, we need a brand new start.

Enjoy the gifts! Santa yelled, as the reindeer took off once again.

Be kind to one another all, and try to make new friends.

Merry Christmas!

stoneman24

5 days ago

A Merry Christmas to everyone !

omnee

4 days ago

Merry Christmas everyone!

accrual

4 days ago

Happy holidays HNers!

ta_le

4 days ago

I'm a chronic lurker for most of the year but this is a good time to say this. I'm so thankful for this community that provides so much without succumbing to enshitification as some other parts of the Internet. Whether I'm passing time on a train or escaping an annoying group discussion, this is by far my favorite algorithmic feed to do so. Merry Christmas everyone!

HaZeust

4 days ago

Merry Christmas, everyone!

rishabhd

4 days ago

Merry Christmas everyone!

schwede

4 days ago

Merry Christmas hackers!

didip

5 days ago

Merry Christmas everyone!

robertwt7

5 days ago

Merry Christmas everyone!!

drfuzzy89

5 days ago

Merry Christmas, everyone!

jadbox

5 days ago

Merry Christmas friends!

revorad

4 days ago

Merry Christmas, HN!

fergbrain

5 days ago

Blessed Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ

ekianjo

5 days ago

Merry Xmas Everyone!

fauria

4 days ago

¡Feliz Navidad!

Ocha

4 days ago

Merry Christmas

pkb

4 days ago

Merry Christmas!

hhao99

4 days ago

Merry Christmas

thepaulthomson

4 days ago

Merry Christmas

thepaulthomson

4 days ago

What will you have accomplished by Christmas, 2026?

weakfish

4 days ago

It took me a moment to realize you replied to yourself and thought you were randomly attacking a commenter =)

amac

4 days ago

Merry Christmas!

nhhvhy

4 days ago

Merry Christmas!

wdr1

4 days ago

Merry Christmas!

reckez

4 days ago

Merry Christmas!

nish__

4 days ago

Cheers, friends!

tuggi

5 days ago

Merry Xmas HN!

songodongo

5 days ago

Merry Christmas! Christ is King.

srexrg

4 days ago

merry christmas anon.

hubraumhugo

4 days ago

Merry Christmas HN! You're one of the few constants among the many variables in my life, please never change :)

gbbloke

4 days ago

Merry Christmas from Spain. Here's to another year of great times spent on a great site!

kaeland

4 days ago

Merry Christmas everyone! ———

“At the very moment that Augustus is making decrees as the ruler of the known world, and Herod is seething in his palace, God enters stage right. Not on the clouds, asserting his power and dominance, not with all the strength and might he rightly has. But in humility. Doing so with a profound statement that he is turning all our preconceived notions completely upside down.

One of the most beautiful, yet often overlooked, components to this story is Mary’s reaction to the news of her Son. In church tradition we call her carol The Magnificat:

“My soul exalts the Lord, and my spirit has begun to rejoice in God my Savior, because he has looked upon the humble state of his servant.

For from now on all generations will call me blessed, because he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name; from generation to generation he is merciful to those who fear him.

He has demonstrated power with his arm; he has scattered those whose pride wells up from the sheer arrogance of their hearts.

He has brought down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up those of lowly position; he has filled the hungry with good things, and has sent the rich away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel, remembering his mercy, as he promised to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” (Luke 1:46-55)

Amidst all the interpretations of Christmas that we hear at this time of year from clergy, advertisers, politicians, and journalists, we might benefit from listening to the mother who sits at the centre of it all. According to Mary, Christmas is about God scattering the proud, bringing down unjust rulers, lifting up the humble. It’s about God turning things upside down— which ironically is the right way up to begin with.

And God accomplishes all of this not “from on high,” like the decree of Augustus, or the brutality of Herod; instead, God achieves his purposes from below in the lowliness of a manger. With shepherds, livestock, and foreign magi as the first witnesses.

Christmas is about God turning things upside down—which ironically is the right way up to begin with.

Every detail about the Christmas story (and the subsequent life of Jesus as well), states that God will reverse the mess and do so by first getting his own hands dirty. God conquers by humbling himself, he will heal by being wounded, he will save us by sacrificing himself. The manger is a throne, and works as a beacon of how God intends to turn everything upside down.

Grace triumphs over dominance, mercy over force, and Mary’s song will be the world’s song.

Joy will pierce through the sorrow and sadness, fully and forever.”

- Wes Huff

wraptile

4 days ago

Happy winter solstice! I used to like Christmas but current version of geopolitics and christo fascists really nerfed the joy of Christmas. Maybe they'll release a patch fix by next year

tombert

4 days ago

I feel like Christmas is so secularized and commercialized that it doesn't have a lot to do with Christianity anymore.

I'm not saying this as a bad thing; I'm not and have never been religious but I still love Christmas.

dizhn

4 days ago

Different times yes. It's also a political thing with people not wanting to call it or claim people don't want to call it Christmas (but holidays) and Ukraine changing their date a few years ago due to them not being Russia.

Merry Christmas everyone.

phodo

5 days ago

Prompt: create a christmas tree in ascii but that is a merkle tree

Answer: Here’s an ASCII Christmas tree that is also a Merkle tree (Each parent node is the hash of its two children; leaves are the “data blocks”.)

                   MERKLE TREE  

                       H(ROOT)
                      /       \
                 H(0-1)       H(2-3)
                 /   \         /   \
              H(0)  H(1)    H(2)  H(3)
              / \    / \     / \    / \
            D0  D0 D1 D1   D2 D2  D3 D3
But that's a little too tidy to be a proper Christmas tree — so here’s a more “tree-like” version with ornaments, while still preserving the Merkle structure:

                        H(ROOT) 
                        /       \
                H(0-1)         H(2-3) 
                  /   \           /   \
            H(0)   H(1)     H(2)   H(3) 
              / \     / \        / \     / \
            D0  D0  D1  D1     D2  D2  D3  D3
           (leaf)(leaf)(leaf) (leaf)(leaf)(leaf)
Notes (so it’s actually Merkle-y)

D0–D3 = data blocks (your “presents” )

H(0) = hash(D0 || D0) (duplicated leaf for balance, common in Merkle trees)

H(0-1) = hash(H(0) || H(1))

H(ROOT) = hash(H(0-1) || H(2-3))

If you want, I can:

generate a bigger tree (8, 16, 32 leaves),

make the hashes look like real hash strings,

or format it like a perfect triangular Christmas tree silhouette while keeping the Merkle parent/child layout.

-- Prompt: format it like a perfect triangular Christmas tree silhouette while keeping the Merkle parent/child layout.

Answer: You got it — here’s a perfect triangular Christmas tree silhouette that still preserves the Merkle parent/child layout (parents directly above their two children, leaves at the base).

                                H(ROOT) 
                              /           \
                    ┌────────H(0-3)────────┐
                   /                       \
            ┌────H(0-1)────┐         ┌────H(2-3)────┐
           /               \         /               \
       ┌─H(0)─┐         ┌─H(1)─┐ ┌─H(2)─┐         ┌─H(3)─┐
       /     \         /     \   /     \         /     \
     D0       D1     D2       D3 D4     D5     D6       D7
If you want it even more like a Christmas tree (full silhouette + ornaments)

Here’s a slightly more “filled” version while keeping the structure valid:

                                    H(ROOT) 
                                  /           \
                         ──────H(0-3)──────
                               /               \
                     ─────H(0-1)─────   ─────H(2-3)─────
                           /         \           /         \
                   ───H(0)───   ───H(1)───   ───H(2)───   ───H(3)───
                        / \           / \           / \           / \
                      D0  D1        D2  D3        D4  D5        D6  D7
Edit: Note the emoji ornaments did not come through.

tamimio

5 days ago

Technically it’s merry Yule and Saturnalia, christ has nothing to do with it.

Insanity

5 days ago

Saturnalia isn’t related to it other than coincidence of dates, no?

Either way, merry Saturnalia to you! (Off-by-one day :D)

Minor49er

4 days ago

A reader of Ernest L. Martin?