271
Book Review: Red Plenty
I. I decided to read Red Plenty because my biggest gripe after reading Singer’s book on Marx was that Marx refused to plan how communism would actually work, instead preferring to leave the e…
Most cited
Posts that commenters keep linking to, ranked by how many different people have cited them in Hacker News comments. 1,308 posts.
Tech Industry & Business
Any year
272
Chat log exhibits from Twitter v. Musk case
This is a scan/OCR of Exhibits H and J from the Twitter v. Musk case, with some of the conversations de-interleaved and of course converted from a fuzzy scan to text to make for easier reading.
273
The Unofficial Hacker News FAQ
Here is a small sample of stuff that pops up with some regularity, if you want me to add entries please mail me jacques@mattheij.com, if you ask a question that is hard to answer it may take a while before I can post it . Please note that I’m not affiliated with HN in any way other than being a user, the majority of…
274
Futarchy: Vote Values, But Bet Beliefs
These policies are not just dumb in retrospect; typically there were people who understood a lot about such policies and who had good reasons to disapprove of them beforehand. It seems hard to imagine such policies being adopted nearly as often if everyone knew what such "experts" knew about their consequences. Thus…
275
276
[REPOST] The Non-Libertarian FAQ
[This is a repost of the Non-Libertarian FAQ (aka “Why I Hate Your Freedom”), which I wrote about five years ago and which used to be hosted on my website. It no longer completely refle…
277
Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist
[ An updated treatment of some of this material appears in Chapter 2 of the Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet (free) textbook, also mirrors a 2022 article in Nature Physics . . ]
278
279
Why are the Microsoft Office file formats so complicated? (2008)
Last week, Microsoft published the binary file formats for Office. These formats appear to be almost completely insane. The Excel 97-2003 file format is a 349 page PDF file. But wait, that’s not al…
280
Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal
Or: How the AI Bubble, Panic, and Unpreparedness Stole ChristmasWritten by Tom of Moore’s Law Is DeadSpecial Assistance by KarbinCry & kari-no-sugataBased on this Video: https://youtu.be/BORRBce5TGwIntroduction — The Day the RAM Market SnappedAt the beginning of November, I ordered a 32GB DDR5 kit for pairing with a…
281
GPT-3
May 2020 Gwern.net newsletter: GPT-3 scaling, implications, deep theory; anime GAN updates, and 1 book review.
282
Predicting Google Product Shutdowns
Analyzing predictors of Google abandoning products; predicting future shutdowns
283
Money, money, money (and investing) (2015)
A comprehensive introduction to investing in stocks, mutual funds (managed and index), short-selling, and stock options.
284
Agile: 5 years later and you're still doing it wrong
Which values of the Agile Manifesto do you find foolish? If you're going to tar and feather it(Agile), maybe you should start at the source.
285
A Timeline of the OpenAI Board
Yesterday, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman were fired from the Board of Directors of OpenAI.
286
287
Feudal Security
It’s a feudal world out there. Some of us have pledged our allegiance to Google: We have Gmail accounts, we use Google Calendar and Google Docs, and we have Android phones. Others have pledged allegiance to Apple: We have Macintosh laptops, iPhones, and iPads; and we let iCloud automatically synchronize and back up…
288
The Locust Economy
Last week, I figured out that I am a part-time locust. Here's how it happened. I was picking the brain of a restauranteur for insight into things like Groupon.…
289
Business ideas: proving ideas are a dime a dosen
Choose a memorable domain name. Professional, friendly customer support. Start using your domain right away.
290
The Shameful Defenestration of Tim
On Tim Peters' recent suspension as a Python core developer
291
292
293
294
295
296
Big Debt Crises
Ray Dalio, one of the world’s most successful investors and entrepreneurs, shares his unique template for how debt crises work.
297
Back to Basics
We spend a lot of time on this site talking about exciting Big Picture Stuff like .NET versus Java, XML strategy, Lock-In, competitive strategy, software design, architecture, and so forth. All thi…
298
Font smoothing, anti-aliasing, and sub-pixel rendering
Apple and Microsoft have always disagreed in how to display fonts on computer displays. Today, both companies are using sub-pixel rendering to coax sharper-looking fonts out of typical low res…
299
300
Career Guide for Engineers and Computer Scientists
Did you invest in 10 years of medical school and training? What if you'd bought bitcoin and sat on the beach instead?