Why “disaster” is being discussed
The most recent Hacker News stories and comments contributing to this topic's mentions.
This makes absolutely no sense what so ever. There's a good reason why the UI for Excel, Photoshop and Word has hardly changed and remains consistent for years and that has work…
by rvz · Oct 22, 2026
"aviate, navigate, then communicate" only matters if you are the one in control of outcomes. Customers could have simply revoked keys and not re-launched services with rolled cr…
by eclipticplane · Oct 22, 2026
Someone should've coined this disaster as "QuattroFail" to give it a little panache and international mystery
by wildmXranat · Oct 22, 2026
I love how someone's security disaster becomes someone else's feature.
by DrammBA · Oct 22, 2026
Or if you have any sort of non-correctable visual impairment. I'm sighted but recently I had actually been thinking of learning better how to use a screen reader because I genui…
by bunderbunder · Oct 21, 2026
Yeah it is kind of sad how not stopping posts which fueled a literal genocide is hardly glanced at but Cambridge Analytica is considered a disaster of the highest order. Who die…
by aprilthird2021 · Oct 21, 2026
Interest
Proportion of Hacker News items mentioning "disaster" over time.
Mentions
Total number of Hacker News items mentioning "disaster" over time.
A disaster is an event that causes such serious harm to people, buildings, economies, or the environment that the affected community cannot manage without external assistance or relief. The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction defines a disaster as "a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society at any scale due to hazardous events interacting with conditions of exposure, vulnerability and capacity, leading to one or more of the following: human, material, economic and environmental losses and impacts". Natural disasters like avalanches, floods, earthquakes, and wildfires are caused by natural hazards. Human-made disasters like oil spills, terrorist attacks and power outages are caused by people. It may be difficult to separate natural and human-made disasters because human actions can make natural disasters worse. Climate change also affects how often disasters due to extreme weather hazards happen. Read more on Wikipedia