Hacker News Reader

BREAKING: Televisions

Why?

The joke the previous poster was making is that the boxes were printed "by" bicycles instead of being printed by printers. Hence the printer companies would be unhappy.

OT, I know, but I find it amazing how slippery language and meaning can sometimes be. (I was once a professional word nerd.)

In particular, your read is in a completely different direction than mine which is:

1. Premise (GGGP): TV boxes printed (by printers) depicting bicycles on the outside.

2. Joke (GGP): TV manufacturers are threatened by printing companies demanding protection money, which if not paid will result in printers depicting bicycles on the outside of boxes containing manufacturers' TVs.

Your read is much more sophisticated than mine and, in my opinion, is a fairly novel and creative joke, at least neutral if not intriguing.

While the joke I see is predictable to the point of tedium, I'm not sure it's so bad or offensive it's worth hitting GGP's karma.

EDIT: formatting

The "..." in the original implies omitted words. If the meaning was to print by using bicycles, the sentence would have ended with a single period. Instead, it elides "on them" ;)

If HP manufactured the bycicles then they would have a short print cycle.