After coming back to the light background of the Hacker News web site, I have a mutation of my eye sockets.

I know this is completely irrelevant to the linked article, but using white text on a dark background is such a significant violation of readability and visual comfort (unless you're reading several such articles in a row) that I can't help but be completely distracted from the article at hand.

The alternative school of thought is that staring at a white screen is like staring into a light bulb.

Unlike most light bulbs, a monitor has a brightness setting that can be set to a comfortable level.

Also the metaphor of ink on paper is still with us in a big way. Dark text on a light background is the norm, light on dark is the exception.

On the other hand, many people have their terminals and editors in a light on dark scheme because they got used to it from the legacy days when they had no choice. However, I agree that most people probably aren't used to it.

I agree, the dark background is a huge distraction. I think I can see through walls now, though.

So you had a problem when coming back to Hacker News and you choose to blame that on the site with the dark background? If that is the case then you should be saying 'Wow I never realised how hard it is on the eyes to be viewing light backgrounds all the time. More sites should have a dark background.'.

Personally I find a dark background better on the eyes.

Previously: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=308623

Was there a specific reason this story got reposted to the front page?

Wow. I personally would not want to know. But... If I had the means to fire-hose money at researching this problem the way he does, I would want to know. Something really good could come of this. I wish him luck...

I am seriously considering giving 23andMe a try. But since it's purely out of curiosity, I am not sure if I really want to know that I have an elevated risk of Xxx and how exactly this knowledge is going to affect me in a long run.

Has anyone gone through this sort of testing ? Care to share the thoughts ?

I'm in the same boat. Would definitely be interested to hear others' experiences with 23andMe.

Sounds like someone is trying to drum up business for their spouse's company...

Man, that's a terribly nasty thing to say.

Try to have some compassion: the man just discovered that he has a substantially higher than average risk of developing Parkinson's. He's dealing with that knowledge by blogging about it, just as millions of others have blogged about their personal lives as a sort of public diary.

Before its replaced, can we guarantee it was not responsible for page-rank?