[NotPractical]

Does this content really have a place on here?

[dijit]

Honestly. This is quite pointed satire at the current state of things.

If you showed someone from the 70s how things are today, they would view these two things as not as dissimilar as we do.

[ryandrake]

I was going to say! Since quite a large number of HN's readership is hard at work actually building these paywalls, digital restrictions and gatekeepers, unnecessarily Internet-connected devices, and other corporate-mediated dystopias, I'd say Please Drink Verification Can is exceedingly appropriate here.

[mrlonglong]

Well said!

[ljm]

They're not so different from the old bash.org quotes (as in hunter2) or the old b3ta ones. It's just classic internet culture.

I think this particular one satirizes a patent Microsoft filed showing how to detect how many people are watching a TV (via the Kinect).

[duskwuff]

There's also some inspiration taken from Sony's patent "System for converting television commercials into interactive networked video games":

https://patents.google.com/patent/US8246454B2/en

(Note in particular "SAY MCDONALDS TO END COMMERCIAL" in Figure 9.)

[phist_mcgee]

Humor is an effective medium for exchanging ideas and concepts. I would say satire in small doses is perfect for HN.

[cyral]

It was the first HN comment to give me a good laugh in a while

[bschwindHN]

Humor?? In _my_ gated community??