For Halloween, you can tweet an electric shock to one of the Si team

[selectnull]

Congratulations to the team on marketing idea and technical implementation. It's really cool and fun.

On the other side, I don't like the kind of message you're trying to get across which is in a nutshell: "these are our monkey engineers, have fun with them". It's a little bit too self-deprecating and demeaning. I get that it's made in fun, but it buzzed me the wrong way.

[alexcroox]

Aw man we are pretty much all devs here, didn't mean it to come across like that :(

[wmeredith]

This was my reaction as well. It seems like pandering in a degrading way. Right now in Las Vegas, there are street vendors that will let you kick them in the balls for $20. It stirs a weird mix of pity, respect and annoyance: Why are you like this? That's pretty clever/funny. What about me, makes you assume that I would want to do that?

[CodeMage]

I read the first sentence and thought "Milgram experiment". For the rest of my time on the page, I had to fight the urge to just press the back button. As the parent said, congrats on tech, but this just made me shudder.

[simonswords82]

I don't think the message is at all demeaning. It's a bit tongue in cheek/British sense of humour, definitely not a put down.

[smickie]

It's just a bit of fun.

[jonlucc]

I think this speaks to our interest in clicking things on websites and seeing things happen in the real world. There have been several sites like this, but the most memorable for me was the one that allowed you to create a song to be played in a company office.

[meriksson]

I have often wished for this exact feature when using software of poor quality. E.g. years ago when I still used Microsoft Windows, I often had the thought that it would be appropriate if I could press a button to buzz the developers responsible for a particular part of the system. Very happy to see that a similar idea has been implemented, and I hope it catches on. =)

[salgernon]

Interestingly, we used to joke about having a "yea!" button when we came across a particularly well designed feature or small UI touch (particularly on older Macintosh software.)

I guess its a glass is half ( empty | full | full of something noxious ) thing.

(Now that I'm older and more cynical, I tend towards the latter.)

[fennecfoxen]

cf. also http://bash.org/?4281

[adrianb]

I believe there is a Microsoft April Fools video with this exact theme.

[stigi]

Seriously? Giving people electric shocks for fun? I don't even wanna try that...

[DanBC]

There are toys and games that give people mild electric shocks. Did you never grab an electric fence when you were a kid?

[mortov]

Sure about that ? The Milgram Experiment would suggest otherwise (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment).

[recursive]

I think your server is misconfigured. I'm seeing php code.

[webdisrupt]

These are the ideas that make you truly appreciate what you do and could achieve with our skills! Great work guys and A+ for creativity! :)

[blueblob]

According to the out of office thing, at 8:10 AM EDT these guys have lunch, and a 4 hour and 50 minute one at that. I wonder when they have breakfast.

[alexcroox]

Haha it's definitely lunch here. But our lunch is being spent spinning up more servers and load balancers! Traffic has been a little crazy...

[jalada]

It's always lunchtime somewhere.

(In this case, it's noon in England)

[bagosm]

Funny and sadomasochistic, whats not to love? Maybe you should pretend a heart attack or something like that so you can scare the shocker back

[frozenport]

Is today April Fools or Halloween?

[mcenedella]

This is marketing spam and doesn't belong on HN.

[alexcroox]

I didn't submit this link but I'm from this agency. Fair enough if you think it is, but we thought you might be interested in the tech at the bottom and the way we hacked some toy shock lighters to produce this!

[whyleyc]

No it's not - it's a fun side-project using tech we discuss regularly here on HN with interesting links too.

Climb down from your horse :)

[JonnieCache]

If we started thinking like that we'd have to delete half the links on here.

[muratmutlu]

People are voting it up for a reason, it's great

Congrats to SI

[voyou]

Sigh. A 2005 parody of new-media bro idiocy, come to life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06AS8SiY3rw#t=54

[Theodores]

Seems like nobody has read up on Halloween for a while. The Wikipedia page is a good place to start. I don't think there is an event on the calendar that is so far lost-the-plot as Halloween. Nobody knows the slightest thing about the origins of it and this stunt is just a million miles away.

[maxerickson]

What particular interpretation and stopping point in history do you think is probably the correct one?

From what I see people have a party, which harkens back to the whole harvest festival thing.

[mike-cardwell]

So what? What is your point?