Headline Smasher
Learning and science
generative humor
SHOW HN2013
How HN took it
8 positive, 6 neutral or asking, 3 mixed, 3 critical, out of 20 comments about the project. Thread score +0.23.
Execution: 4 for, 0 againstIdea: 3 for, 0 againstDesign: 1 for, 1 againstPerformance: 0 for, 2 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Funny, hilarious generated headlines
From 4 comments
These are wonderful. I can not believe that some of these were automatically generated.
Houshalter on HNIt's pretty far down, but: "Author of LuaJit Explains Why He Changed Mind on Weed" ...made me far happier than it should have.
denzquix on HN"Microsoft Announces Tons of Issues" "Microsoft tries to stop crying" "Afghanistan in Browser" "Fuck a woman to win this Zune"
borplk on HNCongratulations: You've automated The Onion. (The best part of The Onion is the headlines. The articles are funny, too, but they too often just beat the headline's joke into the…
derleth on HN
Voting on generated titles is a good idea
From 1 comment
This is funny. Voting on generated titles is a great idea. If you allowed users to post comments, just like on HN or reddit, that would enable people to play along. Also, I would…
htf on HN
Objections
Site crashed under HN traffic (database connection limit)
From 2 comments
Site has apparently been overwhelmed by HN traffic. Not sure that's what you intended to "Show HN".
daphneokeefe on HNStill erratic ``` An error occurred in the application and your page could not be served. Please try again in a few moments. If you are the application owner, check your logs for…
denzil_correa on HN
Users can inject their own headlines, so some may be fabricated
From 1 comment
You can inject your own headlines, so that makes me suspicious that some of the truly golden ones are manufactured. However, it is hilariously illuminating how many of the…
austinpray on HN
Requests
Show the source headlines that were combined
From 2 comments
Please add the headlines that were smashed to make the stupid headline.
aestra on HNYeah, that's probably the easiest way to 'link' content when you try to click it. I also want to know where they come from in general.
hablahaha on HN
Add user comments
From 1 comment
This is funny. Voting on generated titles is a great idea. If you allowed users to post comments, just like on HN or reddit, that would enable people to play along. Also, I would…
htf on HN
Remove the category labels
From 1 comment
This is funny. Voting on generated titles is a great idea. If you allowed users to post comments, just like on HN or reddit, that would enable people to play along. Also, I would…
htf on HN
Questions
How does the headline generation work?
From 1 comment
Can someone roughy explain how this works? I've looked through the source code but failed to identify the part that magically makes the headlines sound sensible.
tborenst on HN
Is the source available?
From 1 comment
Is the source available?
aantix on HN
Alternatives named
What Would I Say? headline app
From 1 comment
And I assume all of this has been inspired by the "What Would I Say?"[1] app which has gone viral in since it emerged from HackPrinceton a few weeks ago? Your website is…
aroman on HN
Upworthy
From 1 comment
I wonder if the impulse to click on some of the stories is related to linguistic techniques utilized by the sourced viral content engineers (such as Upworthy). While we're on the…
md224 on HN
Procedural HN headlines generator
From 1 comment
I should point out that this is fully inspired by the other day's top post of procedural HN headlines (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6815282). I thought it would be a cool…
wilg on HN