You mean hyperlinks to data: URLs? At least that's not a problem here, as HN doesn't linkify them anyway, so you'll already have to open the URL manually.
Aparrently the name is partly a reference to the tag:
>Why did Google call the new rendering engine Blink? Upson told me it’s obviously supposed to signify how the focus here is on speed and simplicity. Browser developers, however, also tend to have a tendency to have a bit of fun with their names. Chrome, for example, is all about making the “chrome” disappear as much as possible and Blink, he told me, is meant to remind people of the good old (and annoying) blink tag the Netscape Navigator introduced in the 90s. [0]
I looked at it and wondered what was so special about it. Only when I read the comments did I suspect that I had been protected from some great evil by my browser.
You see, I use Firefox. Firefox removed <blink> support a while ago.
It's implemented using a CSS animation that's decorating all of the <em> tags (which is what Google uses to wrap the matched search terms on the page and make them bold.)
This is why the word "html" also blinks on that page.
CSS animations are a more modern feature than <blink> tags, of course -- are you using an old version of Firefox?
Honestly though; I bet you use chrome, didn't even bother to see if this worked in Firefox, and saw this as an opportunity to trash another browser based on your knowledge that <blink> support was deprecated.
I use Chrome, I like it better than Firefox, I also knew blink was deprecated in FF and had the same thought(would this work in firefox?) because I hadn't bothered to check if this was done using CSS or the <blink> tag. Although I didn't consider commenting on it.
Unless you're using a version of firefox older than 24 this is a pretty weird statement.
Anyone who knows me knows that I am a rather solid Mozilla/Firefox fan. I have Chromium installed for verification that things work with my web development, but that's all I use it for. I much prefer Firefox. It was only when I read the comments that had been made here that I remembered that Firefox had removed <blink> support and checked it in Chrome to see what had been intended.
I did not actually check at that point that it had used <blink> but assumed. This was an error.
As it happens, I run Nightly and for whatever reason the animation is not functioning there. I presume it's faulty browser detection on their part or the lack of a prefix-free version or some such thing.
Sorry for being a dick; it just seemed like you were trying to make an anti-FF statement based on prior knowledge and nothing else, glad to hear it was just their nightly build not functioning properly.
For what it's worth, I prefer FF as a company, but I like Chrome for syncing tabs and the developer tools.
Heh, funny in this context because the only items on the page that are blinking are those which would normally be bold anyway as they were in the query.
I've wanted them to do this for years, and I know I'm not the first person to think of it. I wonder what made them decide to finally try out a user experience like this.
There are a bunch like this. Try "recursion", "the answer to life, the universe and everything", "tilt", "barrel roll", "kerning" (and "keming"), "google pacman", "zerg rush", or "conway's game of life".
Eastereggs are a simple way of getting sympathy (for the less geeky ones like 'tilt') and geek cred (for the geeky ones just like this). Probably, some engineer just built if for relaxation (or training with the code), so the cost of it is neglectible.
A huge part of the appeal of eastereggs is the discovery. Listing them would actually remove that.
It is basically the same as collections of jokes: the are just not as great as one of those jokes randomly being told to you one evening.
