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?
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).
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!
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.
*
/|\
[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
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 ..."
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.
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.
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.)
Considering Christians took the Christmas celebration from what they call "Heathens" or "Pagans", I think it is fair. Eastern celebration probably the same.
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.
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.
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.
> 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!
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.
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?
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.
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)
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.
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.
A bit Christmessy (Santa and a snow storm), but created a very simple preset for my VJ tool: https://music.gbraad.nl/revision/?program=threejs:christmas This is a reactive visualization, so it expects audio to play. Normally I feed a stream or MIDI, but a mic will also work
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.”"
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.
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).
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:
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(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).
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
Thought it was obfuscated C code, then I realized it’s a tree or something
Lots of great ASCII art by jgs
That jgs is killing me
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...
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!
I thought this was Advent of Code! Merry Christmas!
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!
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.
Try a cruise with at least one sea day
All the best, take care!
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)
Shall we showcase our trees?
Ah, don't worry. If you just append to one side always and do an anti-balancing one, you get a string of lights.
Hey we have the same tree!
Pinus newickii
May you have a perfectly balanced Christmas
I love your player character tree topper.
It's the thought that counts
¥
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 ..."
Class ChristmasTree extends Tree{}
Not always! Sometimes `extends Plastic{}`
Or `extends Aluminum{}`!
[0] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AluminumChristma...
So Tree is an interface then, not a class?
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.
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.
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
The Bible is full of fun stuff like that verse. Much of which modern day Christians perfectly ignore.
Thank you for sharing. Merry Christmas to you.
There are 2 kinds of Christians: Those who actually follow the faith, and those who only show up for Christmas and Easter.
There's a German term for that 'Uboot Christen' - submarine Christians. They only emerge twice a year.
Considering Christians took the Christmas celebration from what they call "Heathens" or "Pagans", I think it is fair. Eastern celebration probably the same.
Merry Christmas, hackers!
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.
> 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.
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...
Wow, perhaps my "too early" assessment was wrong?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46379541
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.
Where did you move from (and to)?
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.
> 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!
Welcome to Japan!
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.
Just wanted to say this resonated. Thanks for the kind words, and here’s to 2026!
Merry Christmas HN!
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!)
Dear Santa, for Christmas can we get a prefers-color-scheme: dark mode for HN, thank you and Merry Christmas
You must have grabbed that first one awfully quickly!
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?
Perhaps you've looked at the site so much that you're blind to the numbers at the start of each item.
No numbers in Chrome on iPhone, fyi.
I can’t tell if you’re joking, because I’m looking at the site on chrome on iPhone and there’s numbers.
Oh, indeed
Japan changed its flag for Christmas…
The numbers next to the submissions are red/green
What container is this running in?
FreeBSD
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?
I was joking. There is no container. (We don't use jails either.)
The power to serve
Restart?!
ouch
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.
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)
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.
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.
Steam, +130 million users, biggest gamming store, multi billion dolar company, is offline every week for a few minutes.
99.999999 is so overated.
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.
I'd rather restart once (ok, twice) a year than keep that code around in production all the time.
It only affects traffic for about 10 seconds.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⠀⠀⡰⡇⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠰⢾⠇⠨⡦⠀⠂⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡀⠀⢈⣹⠜⠻⢾⠃⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠁⢠⣿⡵⠾⣻⣶⠿⠦⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⠀⢀⣠⣮⣦⡶⠻⠛⢶⣄⡀⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣽⠏⠁⣠⣂⣦⣈⣝⣦⣄⠀⠈⠁⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠁⣠⣾⣵⣾⣾⠟⡙⠟⠿⣍⡉⠀⠀⠆⠀⠀ ⠀⠰⠀⠀⠄⣠⣶⣾⣭⡶⠟⠻⣶⡰⣜⣳⣦⣄⠀⡀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⢀⣠⣴⣿⣋⡴⣪⠎⣄⡙⠻⠿⣯⣉⠉⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠂⠀⢀⣉⡭⢿⡛⣛⣵⠎⠀⠙⢾⣶⣦⣭⣷⣦⠐⠀ ⠀⠀⢈⣙⣿⡿⠿⠟⣋⢅⡄⡄⡐⣄⢤⣉⠷⢦⣄⣀⠠ ⠐⠾⠿⢽⣷⡶⠶⡿⣓⣭⣾⣿⢷⣬⣓⢿⠿⠿⣯⣉⣁ ⠀⠀⠀⠉⠉⠉⠛⠛⠉⢀⣿⢿⡀⠙⠋⠓⠿⠿⠏⠉⠉ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠠⠤⠶⠾⢿⡯⠷⠶⠤⠄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Merry Christmas, HN!
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.
not sure what i'm looking at here...
It shows up as a Christmas tree for me on my phone in portrait mode. In landscape mode the braille is messed up.
If you're viewing on a desktop, shrink the browser until each line stacks below the previous one, creating a tree.
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.
A Christmas tree through the snow?
Fucked up Braille?
May everyone here discover more and better ways to spread the joy of giving and doing good.
The ol' off-by-one error.
Merry Christmat!
A bit Christmessy (Santa and a snow storm), but created a very simple preset for my VJ tool: https://music.gbraad.nl/revision/?program=threejs:christmas This is a reactive visualization, so it expects audio to play. Normally I feed a stream or MIDI, but a mic will also work
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
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.
Hear hear!!
Luke 2:14
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.
Same! HN is my morning paper now.
Merry Christmas to all! Hope your holidays are filled with cheer and the warmth of your loved ones.
Some interesting and topical links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NORAD_Tracks_Santa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Nicholas_Church,_Demre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_the_Christmas_Spider
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A4vle_goat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caganer
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
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!
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.
Merry Christmas everyone. If you are not Christian, then seasons greetings, hope you got the day off anyway!
If anyone would like to add some Christmas lights to their site I made a little web component to add a little cheer to any site.
https://github.com/bradly/christmas-lights.js
You can see it in action at https://bradlyfeeley.com and https://birdymusic.com
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
Merry Christmas, HN! Thanks for being one of the bright spots in my/the internet.
Merry Christmas hackernews community! What a great forum. Peace on Earth.
Happy Winter Solstice (resurrection of the sun)
Happy Yalda (Yuletide)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yalda_Night
Merry Christmas HN! Hope you're all enjoying quality time with loved ones (and good food!)
Merry Christmas to the awesome hn community!
Merry Christmas, Feliz Natal.
That reminds me I have to update my HN theme to have the Christmas theme
Merry Christmas HN. I offer this group my thanks for something I can learn from every day.
This is the Trinity College Choir’s advent concert - really puts me in the mood for the season, a remarkable performance and service: https://www.youtube.com/live/MsUd-twzG2U?si=1HMiaD2-Le70-fch
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.
Merry Christmas, HN. Thanks for a lovely daily read!
Just noticed that color of the HN top bar is more red which I never noticed in previous years.
Merry Christmas to everyone.
(note the red and green story numbers as well)
(this is an old pg tradition btw)
Blessed Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ
Merry Christmas to one of the last great internet communities that I actually like to interact with
Merry Christmas! This great community has changed my life so many times. Let’s go for more!
Cheers, friends!
Merry Christmas everyone! :)
If you’d fancy a little holiday-themed adventure game - https://gricha.dev/happyholidays/terminal
I got scared when I refreshed and HN turned red
Easy mistake. HN's AI apocolyose color is a slightly darker hue.
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).
Merry Christmas! HN Christmas theme is always great to see
Here's to a happy and healthy 2026!
Thanks HN for all the thoughtful comments and interesting articles.
Merry Christmas from a long time HN lurker!
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.
Merry Christmas!
Crimmas!
Happy Christmas, and Merry New Year!
https://codepen.io/LimeWub/full/yQWbNW
This is a good time to start your own tradition, or continue one that you find worthwhile.
Merry Christmas HN! Whether you celebrate it or not, hope you get some time off to spend with friends and/or family!
Merry Christmas!
Thanks all for your contributions to positive chats on this site — have a joy filled holiday
and a healthy dose of Australian Christmas Stereotypes to all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amL8QRiDH2E
including not the original Rolf Harris version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQVEZLcBfS8
Merry Christmas everyone!
Hey, Merry Christmas. Thanks for posting.
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!
God bless you. Wishing you joy.
Merry Christmas to everyone and a Happy New Year
Meri Yule!
Merry x-mas. We all deserve love and happiness. Be kind to your neighboor.
Merry Christmas Hacker News!!!
Merry Christmas! I hope everyone has wonderful time with family.
Merry Christmas, bambini.
Meanwhile almost nobody noticed this page:
>single html file, no frameworks, images or webgl
Happy Holidays https://xe.dev/xmas 2 points by jFriedensreich 15 hours ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46374804
Merry Christmas! Feliz Navidad!
"A Spaceman Came Travelling" - Chris de Burgh
Merry Christmas to All
Merry Christmas :)
Merry Christmas, everybody!
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas everyone!
Favorite Christmas movie?
Merry Xmas Everyone!
圣诞快乐
I was surprised to see HN change colour.
Merry Christmas y'all keep promptin'
Merry Christmas HN!
Sti-hilläh Na-hacht, hei-li-gäh Na-hacht.
Wir Frässähn bis die Schwarte kracht!
Merry Christmas friends!
Merry Christmas!
did I do it right?Merry Christmas!
Here’s a quad tree:
11
11
—
0110
0110
1111
0110
—
00000000
00011000
00011000
00111100
01111110
11111111
00011000
00011000
A Merry Christmas to everyone !
Merry Christmas, everyone!
Merry Christmas to all!!
Merry Christmas !
Merry Christmas
Christus natus est
O Χριστός γεννιέται
Христос раждается
המשיח נולד
ابن الله يولد اليوم
Joyeux Noël
Vrolijk Kerstmis
Merry Christmas everyone!!
enjoy your life
and on earth peace, good will toward men
Merry Christmas, everyone!
hello
Merry Christmas!
Happy Holidays!
Merry Christmas HN!
Merry Christmas!
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”.)
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: 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).
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:
Edit: Note the emoji ornaments did not come through.Happy holidays!
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas to all!
Merry Christmas HN
Merry Xmas HN!
What a year!
Technically it’s merry Yule and Saturnalia, christ has nothing to do with it.
Saturnalia isn’t related to it other than coincidence of dates, no?
Either way, merry Saturnalia to you! (Off-by-one day :D)
Merry XMAS!!
Feliz natal
eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJtZXNzYWdlIjoiTWVycnkgQ2hyaXN0bWFzIiwidG8iOiJIYWNrZXIgTmV3cyJ9.Lg_fp5WWKGLpbxI_YbRY-CfQiXe-gLXzDFMiChkXzY0
Just in case anyone does not know, that is a Base64URL-encoded string. Used by JWT.
Merry Christmas! Christ is King.
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas!
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!
Can't believe no one's regifted this present yet:
https://xkcd.com/835/
I'm on call this Christmas :')