probably has something to do with pg's sale of viaweb to yahoo

pg · on Oct 25, 2009

In a sense. It's because my site is made with Yahoo Store, and there is no obvious way to change the favicon.

hop · on Oct 25, 2009

Add this to your in the head tag and it should work --

I just emailed you a vanity favicon :)

pg · on Oct 26, 2009

Unfortunately Store doesn't give you access to the head. Is there something I could stick in the body that would work?

johnrob · on Oct 26, 2009

Here's how to get access to the head (took some googling and tinkering):

1) Put editor in advanced mode by clicking on red arrow on top right (you have to be in advanced mode to override a variable)

2) Click 'Variables' link (now it is possible to 'override' the missing Head-tags variable).

3) Override the 'Head-tags' variable by clicking the "Define New Variable" button (even though we want to override)

4) Now you can paste in a tag like this: <link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://enter-url-here-to-your-store/favicon.ico type="image/x-icon" />

I love yahoo store, but it has some serious usability issues right now ;)

pg · on Oct 26, 2009

This is the weirdest thing. You're explaining my own software to me. (The editor is the part of Viaweb I wrote.) I'd forgotten there was a head-tags variable. But thanks to you I've finally been able to get rid of the annoying Yahoo favicon.

Incidentally, you don't have to override head-tags. You can just change the global value on the Variables page.

Sorry about the usability issues. It was pretty good for 1997.

cperciva · on Oct 26, 2009

This is the weirdest thing. You're explaining my own software to me.

I find that this happens to me quite often in FreeBSD. Usually the way it works is that someone asks me to add a feature which I had never considered before; I do so; and then I completely forget that I added said feature and revert back to thinking of my code as I originally wrote it.

I don't know if this is the situation here, but I think it's much easier to change code than it is to change one's mind.

hop · on Oct 26, 2009

I love it that you and the many people you surround yourself with are brilliant web developers - and your site has a 90's almost craigslist asthetic.

But like craigslist, it's a very ironic cool and minimalist design that I hope you don't change.

pg · on Oct 26, 2009

Actually the design of HN derives from the (old) design of del.icio.us/popular. So it's at least an early 2000s aesthetic.

hop · on Oct 26, 2009

Ok, early 2000s aesthetic sans a flash intro. But we're talkin' internet years here so you're still rockin Air Force 1s, but their as popular as ever. And like I said earlier - it doesn't matter. Not like Buffett and his famous annual letters to shareholders are looked down on because he has a "thrifty" site either http://www.berkshirehathaway.com

Looking at it with firebug, the whole nav is one tall .gif and all the links are mapped via rectangular coordinates. The title for each essay is also a .gif, though they have alt description tags.

I know its your baby, but if you managed this with wordpress or another CMS, it would be really easy and you could be much more flexible to add new things. With wordpress, you could make a theme just like your current, but with CSS styled text links and you would just make static pages for all your new essays and whatnot. I could recreate your whole site in about an hour if you'd like.

jcapote · on Oct 26, 2009

And here I thought the favicon was on purpose...

clintavo · on Oct 26, 2009

I've had that surreal experience myself. My tech support people are so great and they sometimes explain to me how they did something to "hack" our software to work a certain way for a customer and I think, "how did I not think of that?"