Yup, decided to repost it, since someone replied with a link that even helped me further last time, so I was hoping to start another convo :) which seems like I have successfully achieved since this even sparked a longer thread this time, which I enjoyed reading.
Yup, recognized it as soon as I saw it here because I distinctly remember thinking, when I read the first one, "hmm, I'm not sure I'd call this a 'hack'"
Turns out I did see a thread almost like this, with a top comment almost like this a week ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32793139
Felt like I was going insane.