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Frame from Monty Python - The Machine that goes PING! Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

Monty Python - The Machine that goes PING!

Sublimate
Comedy
YouTube
Cited on HN 3 times, 2024–2026, never outright recommended score 0
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

Posted as a joke in threads about monitoring, observability and alarms.

The 'Machine that goes PING!' sketch from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, in which hospital staff fuss over a machine while ignoring the patient.

3 jokes · Comedy

3 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@nunez Mar 2024 Makes a joke
on HN thread Redefining Observability
Ah, yes, the SLO Dashboard™ that makes at least eight gagillion dollars for Datadog every year that looks super pretty for execs but is amazingly useless for SREs that actually need to fix shit at 0330. i.e. basically this: [this video]
@bouvin Jun 2024 Makes a joke
on HN thread Alarms in medical equipment
Fascinating. Interesting to hear the differentiation in severity in the same class of error. Though a bit disappointing that there is no machine that goes PING! [1] [1] [this video]
@BLKNSLVR Mar 2026 Makes a joke
on HN thread Iran war energy crisis is a renewable energy wake-up call
Read more
Legit question (and one that I need to answer for myself as well): Would it be cheaper to keep the EV and rent a car for when you need to do longer trips? (also taking into account the additional hassle of renting a petrol/diesel car) Only speaking for myself, I'd seriously consider renting a (combustion) car for an interstate driving holiday if it's a rare occurrence, like once a year or once every two years. It will become an exercise in accounting[0]. My silly-ish analogy is: I don't own a plane because I fly rarely enough that it's not worth buying a plane to allow me to fly wherever, whenever I want. [0]: [this video]

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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