Hocus Pocus

Mentions per year

What Hacker News says

• XaspR8d · Jul 30, 2014 · Recommends

  …Quantum Information by Michael Nielsen and Isaac Chuang. (Beastly book. I actually find it to be a pretty well-written introduction so far, but I just barely have the background to plod through it.) Hocus Pocus by Kurt Vonnegut. (S.O. loves Vonnegut, so I'm working my way through his collection. Great so far, though I don't always have the patience for goofy midwestern people humor, despite being a midwesterner…

  on “Ask HN: What book are you reading right now?” ↗
• JKCalhoun · Dec 26, 2025 · Recommends

  Thanks. Hocus Pocus slipped past me somehow. Now I have something to look forward to reading. (I liked Cat's Cradle too but it is also on the loopier end of Vonnegut's writing spectrum—but we need some more of that.)

  on “Joan Didion and Kurt Vonnegut Had Something to Say. We Have It on Tape” ↗
• peterfirefly · Dec 11, 2022 · Recommends

  You're welcome :) Let's throw in The Importance of Being Earnest and HHGTTG (don't watch the movie). Maybe also some Vonnegut books? My favourite is Hocus Pocus.

  on “I start taking English classes at the age of 46” ↗
• afc · Dec 26, 2025 · Recommends

  Thank you for your comment. I like Vonnegut (my favorite is Hocus Pocus) but hadn't read Bluebeard. I only started it and I'm already enjoying it significantly.

  on “Joan Didion and Kurt Vonnegut Had Something to Say. We Have It on Tape” ↗
• shantly · Nov 21, 2019 · Critical

  I've read all of them but Player Piano (started it twice, just got distracted both times, it wasn't bad) and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. Of the rest, Hocus Pocus and Jailbird are the two that stuck the least. Timequake was OK as a for-the-fans kind of thing I guess, but not great. Bluebeard is already a kind of summing-up of Vonnegut's major themes and is quite…

  on “Kurt Vonnegut Museum Opens in Indianapolis” ↗
• jdkee · Oct 4, 2020 · Mentions

  “Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.” ― Kurt Vonnegut, Hocus Pocus

  on “Why American cities can’t keep up with infrastructure maintenance (2017)” ↗
• Pokepokalypse · Aug 2, 2021 · Mentions

  >We hate boring maintenance and love to launches cars into space. “Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.” ― Kurt Vonnegut, Hocus Pocus

  on “SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night” ↗
• trentmb · Jun 14, 2018 · Mentions

  …Crater - Smith, Dinitia: The Illusionist - Spencer, Scott: Men in Black - Stegner, Wallace: Joe Hill - Tartt, Donna: The Secret History - Tyler, Anne: A Patchwork Planet - Vonnegut, Kurt: Hocus Pocus - Waugh, Evelyn: Brideshead Revisited - Westlake, Donald E.: The Ax

  on “Stephen King: Can a Novelist Be Too Productive? (2015)” ↗
• dalke · Apr 22, 2014 · Mentions

  The headline is there to draw attention. The article doesn't actually propose that this might be "the beginning of the end." Instead, it uses this lovely quote from Vonnegut's "Hocus Pocus": > Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance. to argue that "Those who benefit most from the gift of the web should also serve as guardians,…

  on “Heartbleed: the beginning of the end for open source?” ↗
• nemild · Jul 2, 2019 · Mentions

  Agreed. A favorite quote: “[E]verybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.” - Kurt Vonnegut, Hocus Pocus For a long time, my bias was to write code when faced with a problem, without realizing the debt I was taking on and the other solutions available. https://www.nemil.com/on-software-engineering/dont-write-cod...

  on “Choose Boring Technology” ↗
• notabee · Nov 19, 2020 · Mentions

  …hands up and say that's inevitable, or try to incentivize our better selves? “Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance” — Kurt Vonnegut, Hocus Pocus

  on “Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dismantled” ↗