On severaloccasions while browsing Meta Stack Overflow, I have encountered the phrase information porn, typically used by Jeff Atwood. What does it mean?
Best Answer
This is a particular instance of the X porn meme template. I'm not going to provide a link for that, mostly because I don't relish what Google will try to show me if I search for it. In general, however, X porn is material of type X presented in an excessive, highly attractive format designed to elicit a strong reaction from the viewer. For example:
information porn (your example) would be tons and tons of information, laid out in an attractive manner that far exceeds your actual need or use for that information
food porn is the sort of stuff you see in cooking magazines, where gorgeous close-ups of delicious, fresh-cooked food are plastered on page after page
torture porn in an unfortunate trend in recent horror films where physical pain and torment of the characters is shown in excessive, nauseating detail.
Claudiu's answer is good. The original source of the quote posted by OMG Ponies is actually from The Simpsons. It's from Treehouse of Horror V; one of the Halloween episodes specifically. In this episode, Homer's "urge to kill"—i.e. his violent tendencies—are tapered by the Television working and/or showing a TV show that makes him want to kill (the episode was a spoof on the Steven King book/film The Shining, in which the character Jack tries to murder his family). It is, of course, a very tongue in cheek saying. It essentially means that one is extremely bothered and/or annoyed by something, so much so that it makes you want to "kill" something. The author of the post definitely means you no harm. :)
"And are they ever" means that they are to a very high degree. It is emphasising or intensifying the previous statement.
It is similar to saying that the over-represented paths are really really over represented and the under-represented paths are really really under-represented.
A simpler example would be:
Given the pitch conditions, the players should be covered in mud. And are they ever!
So the players are caked in mud up to their eyeballs.
Best Answer
This is a particular instance of the X porn meme template. I'm not going to provide a link for that, mostly because I don't relish what Google will try to show me if I search for it. In general, however, X porn is material of type X presented in an excessive, highly attractive format designed to elicit a strong reaction from the viewer. For example:
And of course there's regular old porn porn.