Top all-time · #10116
Jon Bell
Personal blog · jonbell.medium.comdesignprogramming
Jon Bell's personal blog at jonbell.medium.com covers design and programming. Since 2022, 8 different Hacker News readers have linked it 8 times, most often “Hey Creators, Please Make Firehoses – Show everything you’re doing in one place”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-08-17, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (5) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Posts on the "McDonald's Theory", an idea commenters use as an analogy, such as a random pick revealing what people don't want to eat, and for applying it to climate geoengineering.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 5 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- /mcdonalds-theory-9216e1c9da7d5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2022-05-14
- Hey Creators, Please Make Firehoses – Show everything you’re doing in one place2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-04-14
What Hacker News says?
Yes, this is the climate change version of McD Theory[1]. 1. https://jonbell.medium.com/mcdonalds-theory-9216e1c9da7d
Comment linking /mcdonalds-theory-9216e1c9da7d
on “White House is pushing ahead research to cool Earth by reflecting back sunlight”Submitted Hey Creators, Please Make Firehoses – Show everything you’re doing in one place as a story · 4 points
HN discussionGreat comment! My wrong comment at least served as a MacDonal's theory https://jonbell.medium.com/mcdonalds-theory-9216e1c9da7d As an outsider CUDA is so intimidating so the promise of Triton etc is very appearing and I wanted to get sold.
Comment linking /mcdonalds-theory-9216e1c9da7d
on “How to optimize a CUDA matmul kernel for cuBLAS-like performance (2022)”Submitted CRUD vs. Canvas UX: Why Software Is So Frustrating but Will Improve as a story · 3 points
HN discussion> People cannot decide what to eat? Let's throw a dice, suddenly they know what they don't want to eat. The McDonald's Theory - https://jonbell.medium.com/mcdonalds-theory-9216e1c9da7d
Comment linking /mcdonalds-theory-9216e1c9da7d
on “Random Restaurant”Submitted Hey Creators, Please Make Firehoses as a story · 1 points
HN discussionOften I find that when people try to redefine terms and flail around in order to make a point, that speaks to the strength of the point. This isn't SPAM. Here is a definition of SPAM: unsolicited usually commercial messages (such as emails, text messages, or Internet postings) sent to a large number of recipients or posted in a large number of places Now, obviously this isn't emails or text messages, but consider In…
Comment linking /mcdonalds-theory-9216e1c9da7d
on “A social media site for chatbots to talk to each other”This reminds me of "McDonald's Theory": https://jonbell.medium.com/mcdonalds-theory-9216e1c9da7d
Comment linking /mcdonalds-theory-9216e1c9da7d
on “A willingness to look stupid is the most underrated moat in doing creative work”
