[lmm]

I think they've just managed a good design - mostly by resisting the temptation to show off as so many designers do. It's very minimal - if anything it looks similar to the hand-written no-styles websites that academics often write (that look like http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ )

[PuffinBlue]

Actually more like http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/

:-)

[pdm55]

Simplicity! I'm in love. Thanks.

Actually, your simple design is not the only one to make my day. I have finally found a guy who puts all the HTML5 etc. on the one page. He's a physics lecturer. He has dead easy html files that illustrate Newton's Cannon, using canvas and javascript. Finally, I am "getting" it. See http://physics.weber.edu/schroeder/html5/. (And the bonus was to see that, with uniform circular motion, the acceleration is towards the centre of rotation. I mean I really need things explained simply without any extras getting in the way.) Of course, I had to play with it to understand it. But the beauty was that, with the source code all there on the one page, I could easily make changes and see the effect immediately. Thanks Dan Schroeder.

PS I need to remind myself that posting pdf files is another straightforward way to get information online.

[PuffinBlue]

Oh this isn't my design, though I do like it!

The guy who made it is: https://twitter.com/drew_mc

[vacri]

First thing on loading that link was "yuck, the contrast is fucked", and sure enough, item #2 is "less contrast is good".

About the only good point on the list in that link is line width. But all the items about formatting text combine to make it so that there is so much less information on the screen. I'd much prefer to read the other website.

[isomorphic]

Sure, but the Google Analytics loader code on either of those is larger than all of the HTML boilerplate and CSS combined. At least the first one has snarky HTML comments!

[dexterdog]

But most people either have that code cached or blocked.

[pjc50]

Now can we have bettermotherfuckinghackernews.com too? Which behaves sanely on Android?

[lmm]

No, medium isn't quite so horribly narrow as that one, and most academic sites didn't do the narrow thing at all.

[marincounty]

That site made my night! Sometimes new is not better. I wonder if I'll ever see bloated websites slimmed down?