Isn't that the change from "Startup News" to "Hacker News" was meant for? To have more news that was off-topic and non-startup to brake up all the same posts?
Yes. But there's still a certain aversion to having truly mainstream news on this site. For now, it's not a problem because the mainstream news is pretty rare.
I will keep the humorous posts to a minimum.
They really don't bother me, I'd encourage you to post whatever you want. It's up to Paul Graham and the editors to fix it if there is a problem.
The point was to make it like reddit-of-old, not reddit-of-now. This is nauseatingly reddit-of-now-like.
It also made boingboing (and wasn't even posted by Xeni). It's interesting and funny. It doesn't bother me. You should try not to let it bother you either.
Reddit-of-old had this stuff. Just in manageable small quantities sprinkled over the smart stuff. As long as it stays close to this ratio, I think it's fine.