Why do you guys keep re using these phrases and others? ESPECIALLY orthogonal - how is that a word that’s meant to be commonly used in speech?
Similar for dark patterns.
Another focus of HN is startups. Table stakes as a gambling term is shorthand for similar non-gambling, non-startup discussions.
Jargon among a population is normal.
EDIT: When I was in the Navy in the 70s, and most Navy ships were still steam powered, "steaming" among us was jargon for staying out all night on liberty and partying hard.
(Dark patterns was first adopted in 2010, for example)
Partly it's pattern recognition on your/our behalf. We notice something new, then something again, and there's a pattern.
Without actual data on the frequency of words and phrases we wouldn't really know either way. Similar to those charts / graphs of NYT could be a good start, but for HN e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23981380
Maybe the search results below could be hacked?
That is the nature of language. When a specific term has been established to describe a specific thing (noun, phenomena, etc), it enters the lexicon, so to speak.
It's how we, as English speakers, can understand each other when we say 'feet off the couch' and 'food on the table', whereas table, feet, food and couch are all now specific things described by specific terms.
The 'dark patterns' one is new to me, too. We're witnessing new words/terms being created that likely will be normal to everyone 10 years down the line. Enjoy the moment.
(Edit: Upon looking up 'dark patterns', I see that it was coined about 10 years ago. So now that means we're seeing the coined term gaining prominence. Neat.)
There could also be a frequency illusion happening to you, where once you make notice of something you start to see it show up in other places: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion
Perhaps you'll notice more people using the word 'posit' after reading this.
Orthogonal is also technical jargon from math. I suppose that many people here have a math background (CS, engineering, etc.)
"Dark patterns" caught my attention - have seen it here many times over the past 2 months, but have yet to see it anywhere else, or even here before recently. It's a general term used to describe a specific thing.
Orthogonal is an efficient word. Otherwise I’d have to say something like “application speed and application security are two issues that can be worked on independently in such a way that you can improve or degrade one without improving and degrading the other and thus you can focus on one issue at a time”
The worst by far is “trivial”. Every pseudo-nerd here uses it in every freaking sentence haha.
While there is some signaling and "everything looks like a nail"-ness happening, I think on balance it's are a good thing. These concepts, including the ones you mentioned, are genuinely useful. Their hype cycles are a collective process by which we figure out when and where the concepts are most useful, and then they settle into their place.