I'm quite embarrassed.

Nah. Arguably the HN algorithm could do slightly smarter matching on URLs. It's interesting to look at the URLs in this case:

(Yours is the third. Note how the second invented a query string to deliberately skirt the rules!)

Three of these URLs could be considered equivalent - drop the query string in one and the anchor in the other. The last one, of course, is just totally different.

On the other hand, if you do this, you'd probably get some false matches, because some web pages use query strings to represent different content. Plus you couldn't do things like post neat Google searches directly.

So probably we should resign ourselves to an endless series of duplications, whereupon the geeks pounce, digging up previous versions and posting them all in ever-lengthening lists. Not so bad, really. :)

Edit: how about preemptive duplicate prediction? There's an obvious gap here:

http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0504.html

... and one day, someone's gonna post it. (Actually, it gets redirected to still another.) Or maybe they already did and we could make an even geekier list. But how to check that without actually submitting it?

Edit 2: Do I win for minutiae of the day?

Richard Feynman and the Connection Machine (by W. Danny Hillis)

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