Top all-time · #21
Zach Weinersmith
Personal blog · smbc-comics.comculturescience
Zach Weinersmith writes Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, a personal blog at smbc-comics.com about culture and science. Since 2009, 855 different Hacker News readers have linked it 1,269 times, most often “The “Talk””. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-01, and you can follow it by feed.
Sometimes recommended · 10 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Zach Weinersmith's SMBC comics as short punchlines for a thread's point, usually as bare links. Commenters call specific strips funny, accurate and a perfect summary.
- Recommended for · 10 comments
- Called great, very funny, a favourite, a perfect summary and 100% accurate; one says it 'says it well'.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- The “Talk”45 people · 65 mentions · first linked 2017-10-18
- /comic/2012-03-2114 people · 15 mentions · first linked 2019-10-17
- /comic/aaaah14 people · 14 mentions · first linked 2023-08-15
- The (Quantum Computing) Talk11 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2016-12-22
- /comic/2011-02-179 people · 13 mentions · first linked 2021-06-14
- How Internet Fighting Works9 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2018-06-22
- /comic/why-i-couldn39t-be-a-math-teacher9 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2019-12-23
- Seven Lifetimes9 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2019-08-28
- Here is something true: one day you will be dead.8 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2012-11-02
- Superman Could Save More Lives (2011)7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2019-02-03
What Hacker News says?
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/sad-2
Comment linking /comic/sad-2
on “Sora: Creating video from text”Submitted The “Talk” as a story · 877 points
HN discussionhttps://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3576 Maybe this one?
Comment linking /?id=3576
on “GPT-4o”Submitted The Talk as a story · 448 points
HN discussionQuite relevant to that, there's this one SMBC comic from almost a decade ago that I've referred back to on a monthly basis, and it just keeps getting more and more relevant every year. https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2013-04-07 This is what often happens in politics. There are a small subset of extremist on either side, and when people argue, they're pointing out the worst things the other side's extremists did. C…
Comment linking /comic/2013-04-07
on “Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.”Submitted How much money we can raise for transparently idiotic startups? as a story · 206 points
HN discussion>Also I can imagine a number of rationalizations and psychological mechanisms that can explain how working for this kind of organization affects people - the Stanford Prison Experiment etc. http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3025 Not that I don't broadly agree.
Comment linking /?id=3025
on “Don't Fly During Ramadan”Submitted SMBC Parts Ways with Hiveworks as a story · 171 points
HN discussionI believe SMBC says it well: “I’m offended” is a much more useful concept than “it’s offensive.” https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-02-23
Comment linking /comic/2011-02-23
on “Robinhood is limiting purchases of stocks: AMC, Blackberry, Nokia, and GameStop”Submitted Was everyone stupid back then? as a story · 154 points
HN discussionGuess you just completely tuned out from everything I said about the relative quality of different Mozilla arguments. Let's try pictures. >Lawyer: Diiiid... you kill her?! >Judge: For the last time no! >Caption: The defense was going poorly. https://smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=210 Cut from the lawyer to you, saying "Are you sure they intended them to be preliminary?" Same thing.
Comment linking /index.php?db=comics&id=210
on “uBlock Origin is no longer available on the Chrome Store”Submitted If you don't talk to your kids about quantum mechanics, someone else will as a story · 107 points
HN discussionIt's funny that this line of defense is sincerely attempted here, as it's so absurd that it's actually the punchline of an SMBC comic. And honestly, one of my favorite ones that I find genuinely very funny. >Lawyer: Okay, let's say my client killed his wife. What about the people he didn't kill?! That's six billion people! Don't they matter? Don't they matter?! >Caption: In an alternate universe, Jeffrey Dahmer has…
Comment linking /index.php?db=comics&id=299
on “uBlock Origin is no longer available on the Chrome Store”Submitted Math Goblins as a story · 72 points
HN discussionGreat comic on this: https://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3576
Comment linking /?id=3576
on “Google Duplex: An AI System for Accomplishing Real World Tasks Over the Phone”Submitted The Importance of a Liberal Education as a story · 43 points
HN discussionSMBC manages to do it in a 4 panel comic: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/real-4
Comment linking /comic/real-4
on ““A calculator app? Anyone could make that””Submitted Here is something true: one day you will be dead. as a story · 36 points
HN discussionSMBC had a pretty great take on this: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/summary
Comment linking /comic/summary
on “Gemini 3”Submitted SMBC on Healthcare for Small Business Owners as a story · 35 points
HN discussionToday's SMBC comic is relevant to your argument: http://smbc-comics.com/comic/wait-a-sec
Comment linking /comic/wait-a-sec
on “Uber Paid Hackers to Delete Stolen Data on 57M People”Submitted Science Fictions – How Do We Fix the Broken Scientific System? [Cartoon] as a story · 34 points
HN discussion> Some of the most important and least controversial efforts to address gender diversity in tech are the people trying to make better toys for young girls. As I've heard it stated, we have a shortage of engineers, not a shortage of princesses and our toy aisles should reflect that. This SMBC comic sums up the issue perfectly: https://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=1883 On a side note, I've also noticed that the bulk of my…
Comment linking /?id=1883
on “Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo”Submitted Science Fan vs. Scientist as a story · 24 points
HN discussionI think you're recalling the end of this comic[1], which was on the front page of HN a couple weeks ago. So the quote is probably attributable to either Scott Aaronson or Zach Weinersmith. [1] https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-talk-3
Comment linking /comic/the-talk-3
on “John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence”Submitted Bayesianism as a story · 16 points
HN discussionThis SMBC from 2013 illustrates the issue as well as anything. And all joking aside, I think it is 100% accurate, and a real problem that we don't yet have a solution for. https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2013-04-07
Comment linking /comic/2013-04-07
on “Why isn't the internet more fun and weird?”Submitted Safe AI Image Generation as a story · 7 points
HN discussion> Except for where you start a sentence with "yeah," apparently answering in the affirmative a hypothetical question that no one has asked, and adding a superfluous and grammatically incorrect comma, you are vaguely correct. Wow, you must be a hit at parties. The way I phrased that sentence is how some some dialects of English, like the one I speak, express agreement. Consider it shorthand for "I agree,". And perhap…
Comment linking /comic/biblical-literalism
on “Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar”Submitted If you don't talk to your kids about quantum computing, someone else will as a story · 7 points
HN discussion
