There was a place in San Francisco called Darwin Cafe that had the best kale salad ever. It used a lot (though not 1:1) prosciutto fried in garlic oil and tossed with lemon and balsamic with almost equal parts parmasen. The recipe called for the kale to presoak a bit tossed with the lemon and some salt to break down some of the kale fibers and make it more palatable.
You might try Red kale, strip out the stems and chop finely, mix with blood orange, blueberries, avocado and loads of nuts (I do chopped & toasted walnuts and pecans). Little olive oil, salt and vinegar? Mmmm!
Kale is awesome because it gives salad so much structure for all the nice tasty squishy bits!
Lettuce is my least favorite leafy green. It's outdone in every way by spinach, kale, cabbage, brussel sprouts, or collard greens. It's one of the most American foods I can think of: in an attempt to eat healthy we found the most bland, nutrient free food possible.
This does not seem to contribute much to an article that is not about the "modern obsession" with kale and that indicates, if anything, that kale is not a mere modern contrivance (though perhaps its use as a human food has become rather faddish—a fad which it is fortunately easy to avoid simply by not partaking).
The article itself isn't really HN material is it? If it was about somebody writing a Lisp program that generated pictures of 2m high Kale growing on modern pictures of Jersey it might be more interesting. As it is, cows eat green things, news at 11. Even the author at Atlas Obscura seems bored by it.
I make jokes frequently, and rarely get downvoted for them. They're rarely standalone. They're topical and non-obvious. Low-hanging fruit is punished here. Most jokes people happen to make are low-hanging fruit. It's like the reverse "lucky 10,000" effect: if you think something is funny, it's probably because it's novel to you. Meanwhile, the rest of us have seen that joke, on the internet, too many times already. Uninteresting comments go down. Also, delivery makes the joke: just like sarcasm, the medium isn't doing you any favors.
That's the sort of joke that you make and take your lumps for. Sometimes the feeling strikes you and you can't resist. Getting downvoted makes it funnier. The lowest you can go is -4 so it isn't even like you lose that many fake internet points for it.
I've seen enough of this crowd to not be surprised at any ridiculous thing that happens here. Like having a 50 page Very Serious argument back and forth about some minor, irrelevant detail, possibly having nothing at all to do with the actual article, but a simple joke gets downmodded because ZOMG HOW INAPPROPRIATE. Or lest we forget, the various articles about things this crowd clearly knows nothing about, like politics or economics, but everyone has an opinion about anyhow.
By the way, given the frequent gasps of horror which are heard here when people are confronted with the horrifying suggestion that Microsoft is an evil corporation and people should use Linux or BSD instead, along the lines of "but I might have to compile my own wifi drivers tho! egads!", or those who are appalled at the idea of system startup using shell scripts ("the barbarity!") or the frequent snarky remarks that C is a terrible, horrible, no-good "unsafe" language that is unsuitable for any use (despite virtually everything else in the world depending on it), etc, etc, it's quite charitable to describe this as being a forum for "Hackers." In many cases, it's more like just a bunch of pretenders and wannabes.
I read your comment profile, and know exactly what you mean about the "cancel culture." This is the first profile I've had here where I've actually managed to get a little positive 'karma' built up and avoid immediately getting downmodded into oblivion and run out on a rail. My very first account here a couple years ago, as a bright eyed noob, was literally shadowbanned within 15 minutes, which absolutely blew my mind.
The moderation system here is seriously broken, and has the effect of creating a toxic echo chamber of humorless trigger-happy goons. I've read a lot of complaints about it in various articles over the years, by names who no longer seem to be around. The response always seems to be EWONTFIX.
Indeed. The issue I had here was not that there was a joke in a place of solemnity, but that it was an old and low-effort joke that also didn't add to the discussion.
