You write as if these are bad things, but they're wonderful things. They're also the bread and butter of this site, so it's good that you see them here. Something would be wrong if you didn't.

Pure interest and sublime pointlessness are, of course, two of the classic hacker motivations.

Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23246221 is happily near the top of the front page as we speak.